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THE BOOK OF 
WASHINGTON 

By 
ROBERT SHACKLETON 

Aut/ior of "The Book of Boston," "The 
Book op New York," "The Book of 
Philadelphia," "The Book of Chicago," 
Etc. 




Illustrated with Photographs 
and with Drawings by HenrY PlTZ 

THE PENN PUBLISHING 

COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1922 



COPYRIGHT 
19 2 2 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 




The Book of Washington 



3fl(o/^^ 



.6^ 



MADE IN THE U. S. A, 



^'^ 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The City op George the Great .... 1 

II A House Happily Named 17 

III A Curious Visit 38 

IV Our Appian Way 53 

V The Capitol 63 

VI "Grave and Reverend Seigniors" ... 77 

VII Representatives and Misrepresbntatives 92 

VIII Some Characteristics 102 

IX Around Lafayette Square 119 

X Houses and Memories 137 

XI The .Gathering of Art 158 

XII The Mall 167 

XIII Memorials That Do Adorn 181 

XIV The Dominance of Titles 193 

XV The Pervasive Classic 212 

XVI Books and Libraries 226 

XVII The Charm of the City 245 

XVIII Streets and Ways 258 

XIX The Potomac 271 

XX Georgetown and the Suburbs .... 285 

XXI From Alexandria to Fredericksburg . . 296 



CONTENTS 

OHAPTEB PAGS 

XXII Mount Vernon 313 

XXIII Annapolis 332 

XXIV The Goal of Hostile Armies .... 343 
XXV An Inauguration 357 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Lincoln Memorial Frontispiece 

The Capitol Title Page Decoration 

The Falls of the Potomac .... 

Facing First Page of Text 
Lafaj^ette Square from the White 
House Door 

The Staircase of the Octagon . 

The Old Seven Buildings To-day 

Monument to General Sherman 
»/ White House; South Front . 
i^The Green Room in the White House 

•The Lincoln Memorial; One of the 

Tripods 

^Duke of Leinster House 

V State Dining Room ; White House . 

House Built for Eliza Custis . 

In Front of Union Station .... 

The Capitol 

Judiciary Square 

The So-called "Old Capitol" . . . 

The Supreme Court Room .... 

The Home of Henry Cabot Lodge 

Washington from across the Potomac 

Senate Chamber 

House of Representatives' Office Build- 
ing 

Grand Staircase; Congressional Li- 
brary 

The Arts Club 

Tree Arcaded New Hampshire Avenue 

The Homes of Taft and Dewey , 

The War Risk Bureau 

The Church of the Presidents . 

The Octagon and its Old Garden . 



(Heading) 


1 


(Initial) 


1 


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16 


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17 


(Facing) 


28 


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37 


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38 


(Facing) 


40 


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50 


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52 


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53 


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60 


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62 


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63 


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76 


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77 


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80 


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91 


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92 


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101 


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102 


(Facing) 


104 


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118 


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119 


(Facing) 


120 


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134 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Home of Senator Hanna . 

The House in Which Lincoln Died . 

Red Cross National Headquarters . 

Theater Where Lincoln was Shot . 

The Adams Memorial in Rock Creek 
Cemetery 

An Old-time Stairway 

The Smithsonian Institute 

Washington Monument 

Building for Freer Art Collections . 

Pohick Church 

The Dupont Fountain . . 

Sheridan's St?tue 

Looking Toward General Scott Mon- 
ument 

Memorial Continental Hall .... 

Arlington 

Scottish Rite Temple 

Patent Office 

The Home of Thomas Nelson Page . 

The Congressional Library 

The Public Library 

The Famous Waterside Cherry Blos- 
soms 

The Street of the Embassies . 

The Pan American Building . 

A Terraced Street End .... 

Modern Washington 

Wheat Row 

Statue of John Paul Jones .... 

The Amphitheater at Arlington . 

The War College ' 

The Connecticut Avenue Bridge . 

In Rock Creek Park 

As in an English Abbey .... 

On the Road to Fredericksburg 

Where Washington Met Braddoek and 
the Governors 

Arcade of Mount Vernon .... 

The Landward Front of Mount Vernon 

The Portico View 





PAGE 


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137 


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152 


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158 


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166 


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167 


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170 


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) 192 


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202 


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(Facing) 


316 


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) 331 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



An Old Annapolis House . 
State Capitol at Annapolis . 
Bancroft Hall; Naval Academy 
Pension Building .... 
The Street of Barbara Frietchie 
The Home of Woodrow Wilson 

An Inaug:uration 

The " Hall of the Americas ' ' . 



(Initial) 


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332 


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340 


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367 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

CHAPTER I 



8i,8f & 



THE CITY OF GEOEGE THE GREAT 

HE city of George the 
Great! And why 
should he not be 
known as George the 
Great! Familiarly to all 
Americans come such 
names as Napoleon the 
Great, Frederick the 
Great, Catherine the 
Great, Louis the Great, 
Peter the Great. 

The leader in a republic 

_ is under a marked dis- 

-- advantage, for his time is limited, his 

rule is for a few years only, where- 

monarch may have many years of rule and op- 

1 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

portunity. Louis the Fourteenth had over seventy 
years of kingship in which to win in history the un- 
disputed title of ''great," but the great Washington 
was head of the army for only eight years and gladly 
gave up the post; he was President for another 
eight years and, again, gladly retired. His con- 
temporary, Frederick the Great, became king when 
Washington was but a boy of eight and continued to 
rule until three years after the completion of our 
Revolutionary War. 

Another contemporary of Washington was Peter 
the Great, and he ruled arbitrarily for a quarter of 
a century and was formally given by what was 
known as the Russian Senate the title of ''the 
Great" and remarkably, the Washington-Hke title 
of "Father of his Country." 

Both Peter the Great and George Washington 
founded a city, a capital city, and in each case the 
city was named after its founder— the City of 
Washington and the City of St. Petersburg. Peter 
laid the foundation stone of his St. Petersburg and 
Washington the foundation stone that marked the 
beginning of the city of Washington, in the course 
of the same century! Each was an event of the 
seventeen hundreds. It is one of those facts on 
which the imagination loves to linger. 

While winning his right to be classed among the 
great ones of the world, Washington won also loving 
admiration : he won distinction, honor, even venera- 
tion, in measure quite unapproached by any other 
of the great or the near-great or the little. 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

The very nation that he had fought, and from 
which he had wrested the Thirteen Colonies, led in 
doing him honor. Every Englishman of character 
and standing grieved when the news arrived of his 
death. And for example, a fleet of sixty anchored 
ships of war, at once set its flags at half-mast. 
When, a quarter of a century later, England was 
again at war ^^4th us, and a British fleet, under 
orders to attack and bum the cities of Washington 
and Baltimore, sailed past Mount Vernon, every 
ship put its flag at half-mast and the flagship 
solemnly tolled its bell. 

Washington, at the time of his death, was holding 
himself in readiness, at the desire of President 
Adams and the Senate, to assume active command 
of our forces as soon as the then fully expected war 
with France should begin : but when the news of his 
death reached the French, their leader, Napoleon, 
then First Consul, ordered that for ten days all the 
standards of the troops should be draped with crepe, 
and in issuing this order the mighty Frenchman told 
his armies of the greatness of Washington and of 
his leadership for freedom. 

When ''Tom" Moore was in America, in 1804, his 
vanity was touched by not receiving more adulation 
than he did, and his foreign prejudices made him 
incapable of recognizing possibilities in the new 
city. He even searched for wasp-like phrases to 
use in belittling the mighty leader, and then gave 
up the effort as he burst into unwilling enthusi- 
asm: 

3 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

"Nor yet the patriot of one land alone 
For thine 's a name all nations claim their own. 
And every shore, where breathed the good and brave, 
Echoed the plaudits thy own country gave. ' ' 

Before settling down to build the City of Wash- 
ington, for its home, our Government had been pere- 
grinative, perambulatory, peripatetic. It had exer- 
cised its functions not only at New York and Phil- 
adelphia, but at York, Baltimore, Annapolis, and 
Lancaster. 

A settled home was required for the national 
housekeeping; and after a great deal of discussion, 
representative of a great deal of rivalry, a balanc- 
ing of conflicting prejudices and interests, it was 
decided, carrying into effect Constitutional pro- 
vision, that the seat of Government should be a piece 
of territory, not more than ten miles square, situated 
somewhere on the Potomac River, taken part from 
Maryland and part from Virginia, between certain 
defined points — namely, between the mouth of the 
Eastern Branch of the Potomac and that of the 
Conocheague (now what an unknown name!) — and 
George Washington was given the power to decide 
upon the precise locality. Literally, three men, of 
whom he was the chief, M^ere to be the deciders, but 
in practice it resolved itself into a matter for 
Washington alone, for the other two promptly 
slipped out of sight. And he declared in favor of 
a territory which included the present site of the 
city, with also the already existent towns of George- 

4 



THE CITY OF GEOEGE THE GREAT 

town (now within the city limits) and Alexandria. 
Half a century afterwards, the portion which in- 
cluded Alexandria was given back to Virginia, 
leaving a territory of something over sixty square 
miles of land and ten of water instead of the original 
one hundred. Or, if one would be particular to the 
point of absolute correctness, he may take it that the 
total area, of land and water, is now sixty-nine and 
one-quarter square miles. 

Washington fixed upon the location of the capital 
city. The choice was made out of a 'wide local 
knowledge, mth such promptitude that the decision 
was announced within three days after the passage 
of the enabhng act. The new city, the Federal 
City he termed it, was at once laid out and its con- 
struction begun. 

And in one particular the city was most curiously 
planned, for it was in a sense planned as two cities : 
one, with ancient houses, some of them still stand- 
ing, leading to the southeast and to the ferrying 
point across the Potomac, that connected with Alex- 
andria: the other towTi beginning with the White 
House, and connecting at once, past old-looking 
houses, with ancient Georgetown. 

So it came about that the oldest homes in Wash- 
ington are in two widely separated groups. The 
two separate communities, one dominated by the 
Capitol, the other by the White House, were to be 
connected by boulevards and gardens, which 
were to be lined by pubhc buildings. 

5 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

And it is keenly to be regretted that, until the 
present day, the nobly picturesque planning was but 
slightly carried into eifect. 

But it should not be forgotten that Washington 
had to decide according to the standards of com- 
merce, of shipping possibilities, of problems of 
municipal growth, of communication with the inter- 
ior of the States, and the north and south com- 
munication; and, always, that he was held to the 
best that he could do between the Potomac Branch, 
more frequently known as the Anacostia, and the 
long-forgotten Conocheague. And it may be that in 
the last four letters of this stream's name there were 
many who recognized something ominous for the 
new city. 

With Georgetown and Alexandria both of them 
flourishing towns within the limits of the District, 
it assuredly seemed as if no better locality could be 
chosen for the new capital city. 

Busy as Wasliington was vdth the multifarious 
duties of his position as President ; the Constitution 
having but newly gone into effect, with its entirely 
new form of government ; and with a myriad of prob- 
lems confronting him as to home affairs and our dis- 
turbed relations with Europe; he still found time to 
devote close attention to the new city ; knowing that 
the formation of the capital, its actual beginning, its 
holding a place on the map and in the public eye, 
would have a great effect in stabilizing public opin- 
ion. He did not attempt to plan the new city unas- 

6 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

sisted. Always ready to assume complete responsi- 
bility, and always ready to make decisions, he at 
the same time had none of the vanity wliich would 
prevent his seeking advice. He knew intimately 
New York, Philadelphia and Boston, but not the 
cities of Europe. He talked the matter over with 
Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson, remarkable man 
that he was, discussed fully and freely the plans and 
the buildings of numerous cities abroad. For Jef- 
ferson had not only closely observed what he saw on 
the other side of the ocean but had made volum- 
inous notes. 

An assistant was necessary and Washington chose 
a Frenchman, Major Pierre Charles L 'Enfant. 
Trained as an engineer, in France, he had come over 
with Lafayette. He had soon attracted the atten- 
tion of Washington, had ably designed the construc- 
tion of fortifications, and had been made chief of en- 
gineers. After the war he had remained in this 
country, designing and altering various buildings, 
principally for the Government. 

L 'Enfant threw himself into the new work w4th 
intense absorption. He saw in it, opportunity. And 
he promptly produced a plan for the city. 

On the main street of Georgetown there still 
stands a little stone building which was used as an 
office, for the work of planning, by Washington, Jef- 
ferson, L 'Enfant and others. There the matured 
plan of Jefferson, that of a checker-board city, was 
discussed and there it was rejected in favor of the 

7 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

plan of L 'Enfant. His plan is still the plan of the 
city. 

The criss-crossing of numerous avenues at unex- 
pected tangents, with numberless odd junctions and 
breaks and unexpectednesses, just as the streets and 
avenues are still seen, were all in the plan of L 'En- 
fant : and even the combination of numbered streets 
in one direction and lettered streets in the other, 
with the State-named avenues running at the queer- 
est of angles, was his. But of course there were 
then only thirteen of them. A witty compatriot said 
of L 'Enfant, that he was well named ; that he was in- 
deed an ''Enfant," for he was ''practising his A, 
B, C and his 1,2, 3." 

L 'Enfant visualized a fine city. His map, show- 
ing what he planned, has been preserved and is in 
the Congressional Library. The mile-long stretch 
between the two city centers, was to be a mile of 
beauty. A curious feature was to be a series of large 
mansions for foreign ministers, and another curious 
part of the general plan was to have a great national 
religious temple, to represent all sects, stand where 
the Patent Office was afterwards built. The pro- 
posed grouping of public buildings along the mile of 
planned beauty, was to be added to by artistic memo- 
rials, and bordered by beautiful mansions with gar- 
dens and sloping lawns. This at first empty space 
explains the woods so often ignorantly jeered at by 
early writers and travelers : for there was no haste 
in clearing away the woods even if they could at once 

8 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

have been made ta disappear. A monument to Pres- 
ident Washington was phumed, to be set at right 
angles to a line drawn southward from the center of 
the White House, and to stand precisely on the axis. 
By all this vision splendid Washington and L 'En- 
fant were on their way attended. They dreamt of 
the most beautiful city in the world. An odd fea- 
ture suggested by the Frenchman, was rows of 
shops, facing upon arcaded sidewalks : an effect at- 
tained in some of the old European cities. 

America was a young nation and far from rich. 
With amazing bravery, considering her indebted- 
ness and her lack of resources, her newmess in han- 
dling large sums, the Capitol was begun and also the 
White House ; and the street plan was carried into 
effect ; but it was impossible to go on instantly mth 
other public buildings : and before the matter could 
again be taken in hand, the region between White 
House and Capitol had largely been occupied by un- 
beautiful and undesirable structures. Private spec- 
ulation had been allowed too free a hand. 

It was unfortunate, too, that Washington and 
L 'Enfant could not work long together. L'Enfant 
saw his plan beginning to fail of complete con- 
summation. A perverse man, he took a high hand 
with such men as opposed him. When a house was 
placed by a private builder where it would interfere 
with the general plan, L'Enfant ordered it torn 
down. Finding his stand opposed he withdrew with- 
in himself, and refused to let his plans be showTi or 

9 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

known. Unfortunately, his irritation extended to 
Washington himself. And Washington, immensely 
busy as he was, had no time to spend on artistic tra- 
vail. To him. Major L 'Enfant was an officer who 
was insubordinate. And the Frenchman's connec- 
tion with the city planning ceased after a year of 
enthusiastic work. 

The blow crushed L 'Enfant. He could not ad- 
vantageously return to France, for France was in 
the fierce stress of her own Kevolutionary changes. 
He stayed on in America, from time to time making 
claims on Congress, and lived more than a quarter 
of a century beyond the death of Wasliington. And 
he lived in proud and lonely wretchedness. Corco- 
ran, he of the Art Gallery — so closely connected arc- 
the first days of the city of Washington and the 
practically present time — ^has told of how he used to 
see L 'Enfant, wearing "a long green coat buttoned 
up to his throat, a bell-crowned hat: moody and 
lonely. ' ' 

He always bore in his hands a roll of papers, 
ready to appear, if summoned before a Congres- 
sional committee: and he carried a silver-headed 
hickory cane. That keen-sighted English architect, 
Latrobe, wrote of him in 1806, with one phrase in 
particular, of tremendous vividity : ' * Daily through 
the city stalks the picture of famine, L'P^nfant and 
his dog." How the dog adds to the grimness of the 
picture ! And how one thinks of man and dog creep- 
ing off into the darkness! And how curiously is 

10 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

this story of the bitter closing years of L 'Enfant 
like the story of the bitter closing years of that other 
Frenchman also condemned by Washington, Pierre 
Landais, who stalked in poverty about the streets 
of New York, carrying the roll of papers which 
represented his claim against the American Gov- 
ernment. 

The body of L 'Enfant long lay in obscurity, 
where, in obscurity, it was buried, but it was taken 
up a few years ago, and placed in an honorable 
position in honored Arlington. 

Had it been possible for Washington and L 'En- 
fant to keep constantly withir personal touch, the 
situation would probably have developed differently. 
But Washington, wdth the tremendous demands of 
the new Presidency, was most of the time in New 
York and Philadelphia in the early nineties : it will 
be remembered that the Govermnent did not take 
possession of the Federal City until the administra- 
tion of Adams. 

We find L 'Enfant wanting to Washington: ''From 
this height, every tower and building would rear 
with a majestic aspect over all the country round, 
and might advantageously be seen from twenty miles 
off, and facing on the grandest prospect to the Po- 
towmack. ' ' 

L 'Enfant could not understand needful economy. 
He it was who drew such expensive plans for the 
Philadelphia home of Robert Morris that the mighty 
financier was ruined. And similar unchecked lavish- 

11 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

ness would have ruined the finances of the United 
States. 

In spite of his genius L'Emfant was impracticable. 
Washington was a genius who aimed at practical 
results. It was no time for nursing grievances but 
to do the best one could. Washington put in another 
engineer and the work went on. For the building of 
the Federal City could not be stopped. The name 
of the city was changed to Washington as soon as it 
began to be used as the Capital. 

Eigid as Washington was in exacting results from 
others, he was equally rigid with himself. He never 
relaxed from standards of duty. Yet, mth this, he 
possessed wealth of sympathy and atfection. From 
the time of his marriage until his death he wore upon 
his breast, suspended, out of sight, by a gold chain, 
a miniature of his wife. And John Quincy Adams 
left on record that at a dinner when his mother, 
Mrs. John Adams, was present, Washington took 
out all the sugar-plums from a cake and gave them 
to Mrs. Adams to take home to her son, little John. 
Yet Washington was capable, on rare occasions, of 
fierce and blazing anger. 

George Washington was indifferent .to his an- 
cestry. He liked to say that he was an American, 
of English descent ; to him, that represented the best 
of combinations. Doubtless he knew, for he knew his 
Clarendon, that the most famous of the English 
Washingtons had particularly distinguished himself 
on the side of the King against Parliament in the 

12 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

preceding century, and he deemed it not necessary, 
in the face of American conditions, to bring up com- 
parisons. 

First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of 
his countrymen : then none more fitting to map and 
plan and decide upon the outlines of the capital city. 

One thinks of him, riding about this city in 
the making; leaving that little stone house over in 
Georgetown and going slowly, on horseback, toward 
the site of the White House and the Capitol : per- 
haps, sometimes, in the sporting costume whose 
description has come down to us : blue coat, scarlet 
waistcoat, buckskin breeches, top boots, velvet cap, 
whip with one thong. Or he may have ridden about 
sedately, in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed 
white hat, and with a long-handled umbrella attached 
to his saddle-bow to keep off the heat of the sun. 

In the center of one of the many circles of the city, 
on Pennsjdvania Avenue at the junction of New 
Hampshire, is an equestrian statue of Washington: 
and in relation to it there came to Bret Harte a grim 
conception. For Bret Harte, describing in swing- 
ing lines the Grand Review that marked the close of 
the Civil War, wrote : 

' ' Two hundred thousand men in blue, 
I think they said was the number, 
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet, 
The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat, 
The clatter of hoofs in the stony street, 
The cheers of people who came to greet." 
13 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Whereupon he goes on to a dream vision of the 
night hours following the review. He imagines him- 
self standing at the front of the Capitol. 

* ' Then I held my breath with fear and dread ; 
For into the square, with a brazen tread, 
There rode a figure whose stately head, 
'erlooked the review that morning. 
That never bowed from its firm-set seat 
When the living column passed its feet, 
Yet now rode steadily up the street 
To the phantom bugle 's warning : 

* * Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled, 
And there in the moonlight stood revealed 
A well-known form that in State and field 
Had led our patriot sires." Whereupon 

"And I saw a phantom army come, 
With never a sound of fife or dram. 
But keeping time to a throbbing hum. 
Of wailing and lamentation." 

And Washington reviews, for hour after hour, the 
dead soldiers of the Civil War: a strange weird 
fancy. 

Washington made a point of not buying in the new 
city for speculation, but he bought two ''squares," 
very difficult now to pick out, a little to the west of 
the Capitol, between North Capitol Street and New 
Jersey Avenue. Square 634 cost nine hundred and 
sixty-three dollars, and with the buildings, three 
stories high of brick, fifteen thousand dollars. He 

14 



THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 

also bought lots five, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, 
on the "Eastern Branch," and his own estimate of 
their value was twelve cents the square foot. He 
also bought throe so-called water-lots on the ''East- 
ern Branch," in square 667, containing 34,438 square 
feet. 

It would have been bad form to speculate in lots 
of a city wliich he liimself laid out, so he bought only 
enough, for a rich man like himself, for a small, but 
encouraging investment. To have done otherwise 
would have been bad form, and Washington was 
never guilty of that. 

That he was a surveyor of skill from the time that 
he was merely a youth, was the factor which more 
than any other made him capable of superintending 
the laying out of a city. He had, recently, at Mount 
Vernon, laid out approaches and grounds that are 
still recognized as models of the art of landscaping. 

His beginning as a surveyor was for Lord Fair- 
fax : not the Fairfax who was his pleasant neighbor 
down the Potomac, but the head of the house, an 
older man, the Lord Fairfax who banished himself, 
long before the Revolution, to the Shenandoah re- 
gion, where he owned and laid out many thousands 
of acres. 

When the Revolutionary War came old Lord Fair- 
fax was immensely disturbed, so tradition locally 
tells, and he could not get over the fact that George 
Washington was the American leader. One day 
there came to him sounds of great excitement, and 

15 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

it was with reluctance that his body-servant told 
him, in answer to imperative demands, that Corn- 
wallis was taken. 

''And it is my George Washington!" he mur- 
mured ; he turned his face to the wall ; " It 's time for 
me to die." 




16 



CHAPTER II 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 



N front of the north face 
of the White House, is 
an equestrian statue of 
General Jackson: a short 
distance beyond the south 
front is one of General 
Sherman; and this is re- 
mindful of a time when the 
two famous leaders almost 
met. It was in 1836. The 
future General Sherman, 
then a lad of sixteen on 
his way to West Point, 
^ to become a cadet, looked 
v^ for an hour or so through 
the railing (at that time 
a wooden railing) watch- 
ing General Jackson, then President, as he paced 
back and forth on the gravel walk at the north front 
of the W^hite House. 

That the future general must have been in- 
tensely fascinated by the sight and proximity of 
the soldier-President is certain: the eager-minded 
youth, about to begin his own soldier career, 

17 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

was tremendously interested in watching the 
victor of New Orleans: but whatever his thoughts, 
all that he sets down, when he comes to write 
his memoirs, is that he noticed that Jackson wore 
a cap, and that his overcoat was so full that it 
made him seem smaller than the lad had supposed 
him to be. 

The building in front of which Jackson was pacing 
was even then often called ''The White House," 
although it did not officially receive that designation 
until the time of President Roosevelt. It had been 
known as the President's House, the Palace, the 
Great House, the Castle or the Executive Mansion, 
but the simplicity of the two words ''White House" 
finally made its permanent appeal. 

The name of "White House," delightful and de- 
scriptive name that it is, has often been supposed 
to have its origin from the home of the wealthy and 
brilliant widow, Martha Custis. For she was owner 
of a "White House" when she and Washington first 
met ; he being on his way to the capital of the Colony, 
mounted on the horse that the dying Braddock had 
given him, and attended (it is Washington's adopted 
son who tells this, so it must often have been talked 
over in the family circle) by Braddock 's body-ser- 
vant, Bishop, an old soldier whom the general, dying, 
advised not to return to England but to stay on with 
George Washington. "Never," said Custis, "did 
a man make more complete acknowledgment of error 
than did poor brave Braddock in his last hours, 
when recanting his criticism of the Americans." 

18 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

It was not, however, because Martha Custis was 
owner of her "White House" that the White House 
of the Presidency took that name. For the term 
came, naturally and simply, after the Presidential 
home was painted white to cover the marks of smoke 
and fire, after its partial destruction by the British 
in the war of 1812. From the first, the name pleas- 
antly attached itself. It is so unpretentious a name, 
so simple and pleasant a name, a name with, some- 
how, suggestion of charm even beyond what obvi- 
ously impresses itself. It is an ideally American 
name : and it was one of the notable acts of President 
Roosevelt — the importance of official acts being 
measured, in final effect, by different standards than 
those of obviousness at the time — it was one of his 
important acts to give the name of "White House" 
officially, it having been for decades thus used un- 
officially. 

Roosevelt, astute politician though he was, or, 
rather, because he was, was in some respects frank- 
ness itself. He enjoyed being President and living 
in the White House, and felt not the slightest 
hesitation in saying so. Neither did he hesitate to 
say that he had always been a lucky man. He was 
especially lucky when, after most positively refusing 
to accept the Vice-Presidency, even to the point, 
at midnight before his nomination, of thundering out 
his refusal from the depths of his bath-tub, and ac- 
centing his words with tremendous poundings upon 
the tub*s edge, he reluctantly accepted. He dreaded 
the inactivity of presiding over the Senate — as if 

19 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

he could ever have been inactive! — and luck so 
adjusted matters that he was presiding officer of 
the Senate for only one week. 

A glance at the equestrian generals reminds one 
again of the close proximity of Jackson and Sherman 
so many years- ago, and it is remindful also that 
Sherman, had he in his later days so chosen, could 
himself have been the official occupant of the White 
House. For the people wanted him as President. 
But he, loyal to his older brother, would not stand 
in John's path to the Presidency. John Sherman 
was unable to win the goal and William Tecumseh's 
abnegation was therefore of no practical good to 
either. John, by the way, could never overcome his 
intense disappointment. I remember having a talk 
with him in his* room at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in 
his old age, when he almost violently complained 
even then of what he termed treachery and bribery 
used by his rivals to keep him from the White House. 

Jackson was one of the Presidents who left an 
impress. And he was of that class of men who al- 
ways do what they think at the moment the proper 
thing to do. As, one bitter day when he was seen 
carrying a little girl in one arm and her little dog 
in the other. "The cliild was crying. They were 
cold. I'm taking them to a fire." And thus they 
entered the front door of the White House. 

Presidents are remembered for little things for 
different reasons : some because there were no great 
things to mark their holding of a great office : others 

20 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

because they were giants whose slightest touch made 
indentations in history or legend. 

Andrew Jackson loved children. When asked for 
something special to put in the corner-stone of the 
Treasury Building whose site he had one day marked 
with peremptoiy impatience with liis cane and which 
was forever to block any possibility of a view in that 
direction from the White House, he clipped a lock 
of hair from the head of the baby of the White 
House, the tiny daughter of the "wife of his adopted 
son. 

When this same little girl was christened, Jackson 
deemed the occasion important enough to justify 
asking both Houses of Congress to be present; and 
few dared not to go ! And the highly self-important 
and sartorial Martin Van Buren was godfather. 
Dignifiedly as the name seems to befit a man of fine 
personal dignity, it is amusing to remember that un- 
til well on in life he signed only ''M. V. Buren." 

There have been Presidents who are remembered, 
if at all, through their connection with some one or 
some event apart from themselves. As, broadly 
speaking, what was there about either Fillmore or 
Pierce more important than their going arm in arm, 
when Fillmore was President and Pierce was Presi- 
dent-elect, to a lecture by Thackeray, in Washington, 
on which occasion, as they met the distinguished 
Englishman, our ovm Washington Irving, who was 
present, murmured to Thackeray, **Two Kings of 
Brentford smelling at one rose!" And as I write 

21 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

who can say that the best remembered thing about 
President Harding, after all his acts of apparent 
world importance, may in the distant future be that 
he one day chose to play golf on a public ground of 
the city — paying the regular fee of twenty-five cents 
rather than go as guest to some fashionable club ! 

Hayes, man of excellent intentions and fair abili- 
ties, boomeranged into the White House by the Elec- 
toral Commission, when the Democrats fully ex- 
pected to seat Tilden, would be quite forgotten, as a 
personality, were it not that his wife succeeded in 
establishing, for the Hayes term, prohibition in the 
White House, to the amazement of the world. What 
floods of merciless wit were poured upon them! 
How Evarts chuckled over his description of a state 
dinner, when * ' water flowed like wine ! ' ' And now — 
the entire nation has swung around, to formal ac- 
ceptance of prohibition. 

The ill-natured quietly claimed even under the 
Hayes regime that wine was now and then incon- 
spicuously served at special dinners at the White 
House; as, at a dinner to Grand Duke Alexis: and 
some good Americans grumbled about privileges 
given to Russians. And it was claimed that at least 
at some state dinners a certain kind of punch was 
served that was flavored with Jamaica rum and 
familiarly known as *'the life saving station." But 
Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were probably sincere in their 
views, and stood for them in spite of ridicule. How 
incredible it would have seemed had some one 

22 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

prophesied then, that in less than half a century 
stern laws were to order absolute prohibition! 

Among the occupants of the White House, few 
have been so interesting as Theodore Roosevelt. 
His mind was always alert, and he especially en- 
joyed historical correlations ; and he writes, after a 
dinner at wliich the Prince of Battenberg and Secre- 
tary of the Navy Bonaparte sat together among his 
guests, that Bonaparte was the grand-nephew of 
the Great Napoleon and grandson of Jerome, King 
of Westphalia, and that Battenberg, British admiral, 
was grandson of a Hessian general who had been a 
subject of the same King Jerome — who, as Roosevelt 
does not forget to add, deserted Napoleon discred- 
itably, in the midst of the Battle of Leipsic. 

Roosevelt traveled a great deal after leaving the 
White House and found a warm welcome at one 
court after another. Of course they welcomed him, 
he declares cheerfully: their official rules so ham- 
pered them that they could be but slightly in real 
touch with men of the world, and so he served as " a 
relief to the tedium, the dull narrow routine of their 
lives." Apparently, what is needed in a king, he 
decided, thus getting back to liis pet aversion the 
vice-presidency, is that the king shall be a kind of 
sublimated vice-president. 

''Please put out the light," murmured Roosevelt, 
drowsily; and they were his last words in this world. 
The last words of his immediate predecessor, 
McKinley, dying in Buffalo and remembering the 

23 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

comfort and beauty of the White House, were some- 
thing regarding the swaying of the trees outside the 
White House windows. 

The White House has always been, outside and in, J 
la place of charm, except after its burning, and dur- 
ving the period of the unsocial rule of Wilson. 

The White House has always been looked upon 
as representing the social as well as political leader- 
ship of the nation. No other political leader, no 
matter how powerful, has ever been able to equal 
the power of the man actually in the Presidential 
chair : Hanna coming nearest to doing this, through 
his position as unscrupulous head of the group man- 
aging McKinley's involved fortunes. 

And always, in spite of the power and claims of 
social leaders, has the position of the President, and 
*'the first lady of the land," given social leadership: 
because, first, of the Presidential hold upon the great 
titled ones from abroad and because of the power of 
the President to appoint to important posts. 

Socially and pohtically there is naturally a 
national head, and that headship naturally goes to 
the White House if the White House will assume it. 

More prominently and importantly than even the 
Roosevelts took leadership, did the Madisons do so : 
and that was because the capabilities of wife and 
husband fitted and supplemented each other. 

Madison was a man of ability and achievement; 
not a soldier, but an excellent politician, or states- 
man ; an extremely good dresser, a small man, with 
rather a mild face ; a sort of conciliatory man, often 

24 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

and good-naturedly referred to as *' Little Jimmy." 
His wife was taller than he, a good-looking woman, 
still to this day loved and known as *' Dolly" Madi- 
son; of remarkable qualities, accustomed to her own 
way. As wife of Secretary of State Madison, she 
had been mistress of the White House for the 
widower Jefferson, and then she was President's 
wife for eight years more. 

Under the Madisons, the White House was a 
happy place of social gayeties, and the turbaned 
"Dolly" was a cheerful social despot, often called 
*'the queen," whose rule no one thought of dis- 
puting. 

Even the broad-brimmed western hat of Roosevelt 
(a kind of hat I used to notice in the West, that was 
made in Philadelphia, where still earlier a broad- 
brimmed hat of another kind was common) was 
never so well known as the turban of Dolly Madison. 
It was always of some striking or perhaps even 
vivid color. Some were crimson, some were span- 
gled with silver. She is said to have spent a thou- 
sand dollars a year on her turbans and always had 
them made to match her gowns. As Washington 
used to send to London for his clothes, painstakingly 
writing his measures and demands, so ** Dolly" sent 
to Paris for her grand costumes. She was not 
above such homely habits as using snuff, and one 
evening, talking with Henry Clay, she drew a ban- 
dana from her pockets saying smilingly, *'Tliis is for 
rough work": then she drew out a filmy square of 
lace and said, **But this is my polisher." No won- 

25 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

der she was recognized as the leader of polished 
society ! 

When one thinks of the White House, it seems 
inevitable that thoughts should first come of the folk 
who have inhabited it, with thoughts of the building 
itself to come only afterwards. 

And of all its famous occupants, two more than 
any others in the long list (there have been twenty- 
nine Presidents while there have been but six sov- 
ereigns of Great Britain) stand out markedly as the 
possessors of that vivid social personality which 
combines power and rulership with camaraderie and 
an immense enjoyment in it all: and those two have 
been ''Dolly" Madison and ''Teddy" Roosevelt. 
Debonair, arbitrary, sparkling, human, all-alive, they 
were natural rulers. 

Dolly Madison lived in Washington or in touch 
with Washington for almost fifty years. Many are 
still alive who were alive when she died. And she 
was a social ruler until her death. The Madisons, 
as with most others of the early leaders of family, 
lived in a beautiful and stately home, Montpelier, 
just as Washington lived at beautiful Mount 
Vernon, and Jefferson at beautiful Monticello : these 
and other beautiful homes 'giving dignity to the 
living of the leaders of those days. As to Mrs. 
Madison, she visited the city of Washington but 
briefly for the many years between her husband's 
retirement and his death, but those brief visits kept 
alive in the city the close knowledge of her person- 
ality, and when, in the last years of her life, she once 

26 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

more made her home in Washington, she was again 
yielded leadership. As a widow in Washington she 
held actual court: on New Year's and the Fourth 
the important people, after calling at the White 
House, went direct to her home. 

Grant, though entering the White House a popular 
idol, and remaining there eight years, was one of 
those who on the whole made little impression. His 
inaugural ball, however, held in the Treasury Build- 
ing, certainly made an impression, of sorts, for fully 
six thousand people had their wraps and coats 
checked, and all system was lost, and never was there 
such muddling and mixing of belongings. It was a 
cold and stormy night: there was shortage of car- 
riages : many men and many women walked to their 
homes, without hats or wraps or in the belongings 
of other people, while many huddled in corners and 
helplessly wept or swore. There were colds, deaths, 
loss of clothes and jewels and furs — after all, a not 
likely to be forgotten administration, one sees ! 

The great stealings of members of his administra- 
tion have been almost forgotten, so vastly have 
expenditures grown huge and unchecked in recent 
years. 

In Grant's time it was still matter of common 
knowledge that when President Buchanan learned 
that the expenses of the trip of the Prince of Wales 
to Mount Vernon were about to be charged to the 
Government he instantly ordered that they be made 
a charge to himself. How times have changed ! And 
it was not forgotten that when President John 

27 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Quincy Adams bought a mirror for the White House, 
out of a Government appropriation, pajdng for it 
thirty-six dollars, there was such an outcry about 
extravagance that he paid for it himself. 

Some years after Grant, the entire country was 
agitated by the so-called assurance of President 
Cleveland in using for a modest outing a modest 
Government light-house tender : but the country was 
not a particle shocked when, not many years after 
this, Roosevelt began to use warships with some 
freedom, even to the extent of ordering one to take 
one of his children across the Sound from Oyster 
Bay, to see a boat race. And in only a few years, 
so swiftly do changes sometimes come, another 
President personally ordered himself and atten- 
dants carried to Europe at immense Government 
expense, using one of the world's greatest liners as 
his private yacht. What a change within three 
decades ! 

Grover Cleveland is to be counted among the most 
serious of White House occupants; yet he had his 
humorous side; and he loved to tell stories of hap- 
penings such as the jumping overboard, at the im- 
minent danger of his life, on one of the Presidential 
fishing trips — Cleveland being a devoted fisherman 
— of an old darky, who saved a colored youth at the 
last gasp for breath. Cleveland could not under- 
stand it. The darky had never impressed him as 
cast in heroic mold. **Is the boy a relative? No? 
Then why did you take such a risk?" *'Well, sah, 
de fack is, sah, dat boy had de bait!" A stern, un- 

28 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

sliakable man was Cleveland, who would admit, with 
close friends, that his frequent apparent ignoring 
of political considerations was quite likely to be 
actually planned as good politics. 

Fisherman that he was, I remember being told, 
while in the Berkshires at a place where he loved to 
stay, that at times he would patiently sit beside his 
little boy, leaning with him over the porch rail, the 
boy with dry fishline dangling and the Presidential 
father instructing him soberly in the art of fishing 
and the mysteries of bait. 

That three Presidents have been murdered within 
the short space of our national life; that the three 
tragedies came well within the period of forty years ; 
should be realizingly remembered, as showing the 
evils possible to even a Republican nation. And to 
this should be added the fact that still other Presi- 
dents were the objects of attempted assassination ! 

Besides those who were assassinated, while Presi- 
dent, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor 
died wliile holding the office. 

Harrison's wife was too feeble to accompany him 
to his inauguration. In a month he was taken back 
home dead: but his widow, unable as she was to 
make the journey to Washington, survived him to al- 
most the age of ninety. It is told, do^^^l in Virginia, 
that Tyler, succeeding Harrison, was so sartorially 
unprepared that, when the news of the death of Har- 
rison reached him, he had to make hasty borro\\dng 
of the needful clothes. 

Tyler had become Governor of Virginia through 

29 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

the death of the one holding that office: he had be- 
come Senator by appointment after a death : and he 
became President through the death of Harrison. 

Again and again one sees that in writing of the 
White House, one turns aside into writing of those 
who occupied it. It is curious to know for example 
that Zachary Taylor, when elected President, had 
never in his life cast a ballot in any election. He 
had seen so much army service, in Indian Wars, 
fighting in Mexico, in marching and campaigning 
and garrison duty, during the greater part of which 
his wife had accompanied him, that, when nominated 
for the Presidency, he remarked that for more than 
a quarter of a century the battle-field had been his 
home : but I noticed, in the memoirs of Mrs. Logan, 
the widow of General John, the very different state- 
ment that for a quarter of a century General Tay- 
lor's home had been his battlefield! 

From the words, ''Old Eough and Ready," it 
would be supposed that New England was right in 
estimating him as ''an ignorant frontier colonel." 
Yet his announced platform was one in which even 
the greatest American of any section could have 
felt pride. For it was : "I have no private purposes 
to accomplish, no party projects to build up, no 
enemies to punish, nothing to serve but my 
country. ' ' 

So far from being one of Hawthorne's "bullet- 
headed generals," he is described as a gentle-faced, 
white-haired man; with mild eyes and a soft and 
pleasant voice. Whenever a group, passing him, 

30 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

bowed respectfully to him as President, he would 
say, gently, ''Your humble servant, ladies," or 
** Heaven bless you, gentlemen." In all he was one 
of the most interesting of the occupants of the White 
House. 

Over and over one notices, what little points are 
those which mark most of the Presidential careers. 
Tyler was the first President who wa» not born a 
British subject. Even Van Buren could be techni- 
cally claimed by England as he was born in 1782. 
But Tyler was born in 1790. And still more odd is 
the fact that this technically first American President 
was a member of the Confederate Congress when 
he died. 

Tyler was not a man who shrank from publicity. 
When he married his second wife, Julia Gardiner, 
of Gardiner's Island, at the end of Long Island 
Sound, he was President and fifty-four years of age, 
and she was scarcely more than a girl. They were 
married in New York and after the ceremony the 
couple drove do^vn Broadway in an open coach 
drawm by four white horses. 

Between the death of the first Mrs. Tyler and his 
marriage to the second, his son's wife was for some- 
time mistress of the White House. She was the vi- 
vacious and charming daughter of an actor named 
Cooper. Not knowing that fact, one night a Sena- 
tor said to her, at a ball in an old theater trans- 
formed into a ball room, that on the very spot where 
they now stood, he once saw the best acting he had 
ever seen in his life: that of Cooper in Macbeth. 

31 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

And Mrs. Tyler tells of how there came surging over 
her, thoughts of the changes that had come within 
the six years through which she and her father, who 
was the actor. Cooper, had struggled since the ap- 
pearance spoken of. 

One of the ablest and most American of the White 
House occupants was the first one of all, the choleric 
John Adams. It is interesting to remember that he 
was born at what is now Quincy, in a sweet but de- 
cidedly humble little house, and that to a similarly 
humble little place close beside it, he took Abigail 
as his bride, and there their son John Quincy Adams 
was born. The sixth President was son of the second 
and the twenty-third was grandson of the ninth! 
Special interest lies in the fact that John and the 
able Abigail Adams came from that humble living 
to the White House, and that Mrs. Adams was from 
the first full of complaints. There was shortage of 
servants, to be written lengthily about, shortage of 
fuel, shortage of means of getting about in bad 
weather. No one could suppose from her letters 
that she had ever lived in that simple home in 
Quincy ! 

John Quincy Adams inherited a full measure of 
irascibility, yet in spite of that became President. 
Before going to the White House he represented our 
country abroad, becoming familiar mth London, 
Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg — an unusual ac- 
quaintance w^th cities for an American of that 
period. He was our first Minister to Russia, and 
finding it necessary to go to Paris, he left his mfe 

32 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

in St. Petersburg. And then he had to send for her 
to join him. With her child she bravely started off: 
bravely, for all Europe was in turmoil, as the time 
was immediately after the Russian disasters of the 
great Napoleon. She was in Paris when the Em- 
peror returned from Elba, and witnessed the storm 
of deJight with which he was greeted. Many and 
unusual were the memories that she could carry with 
her to the White House. 

A carious point in connection with White House 
dwellers is that of the unexpected prominence of 
Friday. 

Monroe, Hayes and Pierce were born on Friday. 
Pierce was inaugurated on Friday and died on Fri- 
day. Both John Quincy Adams and Garfield, as 
well as Pierce were inaugurated on Friday. Tyler 
and Polk died on Friday and Lincoln was shot on 
Friday. Friday indeed, has from the first been im- 
portant in the history of America. Washington was 
born on Friday, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought 
on Friday, but, to go back to the beginning, Colum- 
bus sailed, on his first voyage, on Friday, first 
sighted land on Friday, and on still another Friday 
discovered the continent of America. 

A coincidence of another kind, one of the most 
remarkable in all history, was that John Adams and 
Thomas Jefferson died, old men, not only on the 
same day but on July the Fourth, and on not only 
that, but July the Fourth of the fiftieth anniversary 
of the signing of the Declaration. Monroe also died 
on a Fourth of July : not a Signer, but a participator 

33 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

in the Revolutionary fighting and the author of the 
Poc'triue which for more than a century stood as the 
symbol of high Americanism. 

That Grant was the first President to wear a 
moustache, that Lincoln was the tirst to wear a full 
beard, are among the Presidential facts. And as to 
Lincoln, it is interesting to remember that he and his 
rival President, JetTerson Davis, were both born in 
Kentucky, and within a year of each other, and that 
one worked out his future through going into the 
Southwest and the other his through going into the 
Northwest. 

And Lincoln ought not to be blamed, as he often 
is, for that hat ! For the daguerreotypes of the 
period show that it was quite the vogue. 

AVhat may be termed the most picturesque custom 
in America takes place annually in the grounds of 
the AVhite House. And the fact that it is an ancient 
custom, dipping back vaguely into the misty cen- 
turies, that in all probability it long antedates the 
time of Christ, adds to the vast interest of it. It is 
a celebration of Faster, coming down, vaguely, out 
of the mistiness of vanished centuries. 

It is the annual egg rolling: which becnme a cus- 
tom here in the White House grounds perhaps some 
three-quarters of a century ago. Eggs and Easter 
time have long been associated and never was so 
charming an association as this. For all that might 
be grim in something coming down from the Druids 
has somehow vanislunl, and only the ])icturesque 
remains. It reminds me of an ancient Druid custom 

34 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

that I came across in the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
bourg, where, in a lonely place in the unsettled 
northern portion, on one night in the year, the chil- 
dren build a fire and then come rushing down the 
Druid-haunted hill, each waving a flaming brand. 

But in Washington the function of egg-rolling is 
in daytime and not at night: it consists in the roll- 
ing of painted Easter eggs, on Easter Monday, on 
the grassy slopes of the White House grounds. 

The children gather by thousands, boys and girls, 
and all young. No adults are admitted, except such 
as are in definite charge of a child. What may be 
termed the childless fathers of Washington (not the 
fatherless children) form a long unbroken line, along 
the stone base of the enclosing iron fence, standing 
tiptoe and eager to watch the gay scene mthin. I 
took my chance with the general public, and was 
curtly refused admission by a particularly stern 
policeman whom I had noticed turning back one 
adult after another. I briefly said a half dozen 
words to the effect that I was a stranger in the 
city, who had not brought a child. Apparently he 
did not hear me. He looked sternly over my 
shoulder at the Washington Monument, and in a 
growling undertone responded to "go back a little 
and adopt a child. '^ So within five minutes I was 
within the grounds — and it was astonishing how 
soon that adopted boy was lost ! 

The sweeping grounds were thronged. Every 
moment more were arriving. They came in singles 
and twos and threes and they came in a succession of 

35 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

little throngs aa street car after street car unloaded ; 
they came, very many, in motor cars. And in the 
closed cars the little children, gathered half a dozen 
or so in a car, looked like crowded nests of brightly 
plumaged birds, for it was a gathering that included 
every class. The rich and the well-to-do were there ; 
the poor were there, proud of their colored eggs. 

There was no formal procedure. Each child car- 
ried its eggs, all fancifully decorated, and most of 
them sat quietly on the grass on knolls where their 
eggs rolled easily. 

There was, oddly, a general appearance as if there 
were only children, for the elders were practically 
lost, practically unnoticeable, among the gayly col- 
ored throng of little ones. Quite amazingly colorful 
were the children and their accessories : their para- 
sols, their many-colored toy balloons, held by 
strings, the bright baskets, the eggs themselves, the 
hair ribbons, the jackets and hats and skirts, in reds 
and blues and lavenders, in mustards and pinks — 
there were children like lilies, all in white, children 
in pale linen, children like yellow daffodils, seated on 
the pale green grass. 

Some were moving about in gentle happiness. A 
great fountain was gloriously playing and all the 
lilacs were in delicate flower. Intermittently came 
the music of the Marine Band; and always was the 
softly chirring sound of children's voices. 

It makes the most picturesque scene in America, 
with its noble background of the White House: it 

36 



A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 

was like some unusually beautiful fete day for chil- 
dren in France, with the beauty of grass and shrubs 
and trees and costumes accented by the noble jet 
d'eau. 

The entire scene, colors and children and foun- 
tain and the White House itself, all seem like a Wat- 
teau picture. And yet, the White House was not 
designed by a Frenelmaan though there were many 
Frenchmen in America, veterans of our Revolution, 
refugees from their home. It was an Irishman who 
. gave the design for the White House ; James Hoban, 
\ of Charleston, South Carolina. His design won in a 
I public competition, and he was given the first prize, 
' of five hundred dollars. 




CHAPTER III 



A CUEIOUS VISIT 






OT only was an Irish- 
man, Hoban, the ar- 
chitect of the White 
House, but it is generally 
said to have been made 
from the inspiration of 
an Irish model. It is said 
to have been inspired by the 
,^ mansion of the Duke of 
Leinster, near Dublin; but 
although this supposi- 
tion is frequently re- 
ferred to, it is with diffi- 
culty that one finds a picture of the Irish house; 
but I am fortunately able to reproduce an engrav- 
ing of ''the Seat of His Grace the Duke of Leinster," 
named ''Carton," in the County of Kildare, from an 
engraving of the year 1824, and it shows consider- 
able similarity in general style to the White House, 
as the White House was in early days, before the 
projecting portico was added. For the front and 
rear porticoes, which are such important features 
of the White House as it now is, were not part of 
the structure until about 1825. 

38 




A CURIOUS VISIT 

Hoban's White House was one hundred and sixty 
feet long, of stone, two stories in height, with a front 
of great dignity. The driveway now sweeps up 
across the broad .lawn and under the portico, vnth 
its four Corinthian columns and classic pediment. 
On the first floor, on either side, are four windows 
with tops alternately pointed and rounding. Along 
the roof runs a balustrade. All is simple, all is dig- 
nified and fine with heedful care of proportions. 
Above the fan-lighted front door hangs a large 
lantern for electric light, and from this door one 
looks beyond a charming water basin, into Lafay- 
ette Square, with its statues and memories, and on 
to the long vista of Sixteenth Street. 

The building is one of evolution, of additions, of 
accretions. Hoban was a man of fortunate tempera- 
ment. He made governmental connections and held 
them. He rebuilt the White House after its burn- 
ing. In all he worked for the Government for some 
forty years. 

The pillared centers of the front and rear seem to 
have been the idea of the Englishman Latrobe, who 
had so much to do with the Capitol, for they show in 
a drawing made by him a score of years before the 
idea was carried out. 

The rear of the building is even more charming 
than the front. It is very beautiful indeed. The 
front and rear are greatly alike, as to windows and 
the balustrade along the roof, and in general air, 
but at the rear tliere are effective pilasters between 
the windows, reaching cornice-high, and the portico 

39 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

is higher than at front, also reaching cornice-high, 
without the angle-topped pediment of the front: 
and the projective portico with six taller pillars 
than at the front, is semi-circular instead of square. 
It is a house of spirited dignity, seen from either 
view: and from the house itself, looking toward the 
south, the eye sweeps the broad enclosed acreage 
of the White House grounds and on to the stretches 
of the Potomac and the heights beyond. 

Beautiful as the White House is, for it is beautiful 
in its interior as its exterior, no less a man than 
Mark Twain said that, *'It is ugly enough outside, 
but that is nothing to what it is inside": though, 
when one thinks of it, this is so stated in ''The 
Gilded Age," so it may represent Charles Dudley 
Warner, Mark Twain ^s collaborator in that book, 
and not Clemens himself, except in the sense that 
each man must necessarily be responsible for the 
statements of either. 

Nor was this criticism meant as humor: it was 
very literally a deliberate opinion : but it is only fair 
to realize that at the time that book was written, the 
White House, although ready to be made beautiful, 
had so many features of ugliness outside and in, 
barnacles acquired in the course of decades of bad 
taste, that perhaps Mark Twain was somewhat justi- 
fied at that time after all. 

It was in the administration of "the prodigious 
Roosevelt," that the building was given its full 
beauty: President Roosevelt so deplored the many 
unbeautiful, disfiguring things that had come to the 

40 



A CURIOUS VISIT 

building as its adjuncts, that he asked for and was 
given an appropriation sufficient for restoration, 
and he went ahead with all the forcefulness of his 
forceful nature, and with heedfulness of the intelli- 
gent advice of those whom he called into consulta- 
tion. And the result is what we now see. 

There was clutter of the unsightly against the 
building on each of the four sides. At one point 
there was an unsightly greenhouse for Presidential 
grapes. At another point there was a lean-to green- 
house for a Presidential lover of cucumbers ! There 
was a structure for a cow to give milk for Presi- 
dential grandchildren. There was very much that 
needed clearing away. 

Roosevelt, in announcing the plans regarding the 
removal of the ill-looking and unfit, that had been 
allowed to gather there, and the making of the White 
House into what it ought to be, said: '*The stately 
simplicity of the architecture is an expression of 
the character of the period in which it was built, 
and is in accord with the purposes it was designed 
to serve. ' * And he finally expressed the feeling that 
such a building ought to be preserved as an historic 
monument, '*to keep alive our sense of continuity 
with the nation's past." 

The terraces which we now see, follow a design by 
Latrobe made in 1803, but are now adapted for on- 
tranceway and for offices. The modern architects 
of restoration of the original Resigns were McKim, 
Mead and White. The public has always given 
greater credit for what is positively beautiful in the 

41 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

designs of that firm to Stanford White more than 
to the others, but it is only fair to say that McKim 
especially had consultations with Roosevelt before 
the work was begun. 

One feature of great interest was added during 
the Roosevelt administration: the collection of the 
historical china of the White House. This is a get- 
ting together, in addition to the little already 
possessed, of what could be gathered of Presidential 
china of the various administrations. Not from the 
standpoint of beauty, but of historical succession, the 
success was all that ardent china lovers could ask: 
and the fact that the gathering was done by Theo- 
dore Roosevelt displays another side, an unexpected 
side, of his myriad-sided nature. No wonder — not 
apropos of old china but of everything concerning 
Roosevelt 's remarkable personality — a distinguished 
Englishman, John Morley, went home and declared : 
''I have seen, in America, two great forces of Na- 
ture: Niagara Falls and Theodore Roosevelt." 

The china of the White House is unavoidably ir- 
regular in quantity as to the different administra- 
tions. For some there had been the purchase of 
entire new dinner services, in hundreds of pieces, 
giving opportunity for excellent choice for this col- 
lection: for other administrations there had been 
but the purchase, from time to time, of such new 
pieces as were absolutely needed, leaving little for 
the collection. And as to early days, much of the 
belongings of the White House, of all descriptions, 
was destroyed or lost at the time of the burning of 

42 



A CURIOUS VISIT 

the building by the British, in the War of 1812. 
Dollv Madison, vigorous and capable woman that 
she was, saw to the saving of as much as possible, 
even in the time of fright and excitement when the 
British soldiers were momently expected, but it was 
impossible for her to save any great amount. 

One of my visits to the White House was under 
most curious conditions. President Wilson was ill 
and the White House was closed. My last previous 
visit had been several years before, and I feared 
that I should miss another visit through a long clos- 
ing for house-cleaning, after the arrival of the 
Hardings. 

For over a year the White House was shut to 
visitors : a house giving the impression of being full 
of gloomy secrets, for the public knew nothing of 
the mental and physical condition of their ruler: 
except for such impressions as could be gathered 
when he went out for a motor ride. Such ostensible 
information as was given out was often contradicted 
and generally held in doubt. Yet the Governmental 
system which had been established was such that the 
rule of the man hidden from sight in the fine white 
mansion was still unbroken. 

A curious report likely to grow into a tradition of 
our times in future years, has to do with iron bars 
on the White House windows. It is not surprising 
that such a story should be current, for the ruler of 
our Republic was secluded from public sight under 
circumstances of great mystery, and there were the 
bars in the windows ! Many gazed through the fence 

43 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and saw them, many crossed States and returned to 
tell of them. But as a matter of fact, the bars on 
the windows which caused such awe, can be seen in 
photographs of the White House, taken in the happy 
administration of Roosevelt: and perhaps the bars 
were put up for the safety of the children of even 
earlier administrations. 

A request for permission to go through the White 
House was promptly and courteously answered; so 
that, on a chill afternoon, a few days before the 
Wilson occupancy was to end, with his removal to 
his new home on S Street, I found uniformed and 
plain-clothes un-uniformed guards, and locks — even 
a literal padlock on a gate which had in other days 
always been open' — yielding to the power of a per- 
mit, and I was passed from those outside to care- 
takers inside, who were to accompany me. 

From the first, the building was solemn and lonely. 
We entered the East Room; the great apartment 
which hundreds of thousands have in the course of 
our history entered and looked upon as most typical 
of the White House. It was not only lonely — it was 
pitch dark! The curtains of the room, which had 
seen so many meetings of distinguished folk, 
where the great people of the world had come, were 
tight drawn — because the darkening had been made 
for the exhibition of moving pictures, and the appa- 
ratus, the gift of a famous film actor, stood, sheeted, 
ready for removal, in the middle of the room, as was 
evident as my guide first fumbled for some electric 
lights and then drew aside a curtain that let in the 

44 



A CUEIOUS VISIT 

light of a bright wintry afternoon. And it was 
curious to think of the President, one of the greatest 
men in the world 's history, a man who had outwitted 
and controlled people by balancing one set of views 
and persons against another, a man who had come 
within an infinitesimal distance of being himself 
actual ruler of the world, sitting lonely here, in the 
seclusion of the East Room, of all rooms, to watch 
the dramas of the screen unravel to interest his 
brain ! How recently had that wonderful brain, that 
intense determination, been engaged in bringing 
about world results infinitely greater than any film 
could picture! From the first, in this mansion, I 
felt that I was in touch with tremendous history. 

On the east wall had hung a beautiful tapestry, 
the gift of the French government to Mrs. Wilson, 
and removed only the day before to the S Street 
home — where, made as the tapestry was, for a pal- 
ace, it was quite too large for its new situation and 
had to be tucked in at top and bottom with astonish- 
ingly ineffective result. 

In the mingled glow of electric light and daylight, 
the East Room was revealed : a splendid room with 
its elaborate ceiling gloriously wrought, with its 
striking decoration above the main entrance door, 
with its great crystal chandeliers, with its splendid 
classic cornicing, with its exquisite hardwood floor, 
rich in beauty and in vdde expanse like the floor of 
some superb French palace. The room is eighty- 
two feet long, forty feet in width and twenty-two 
feet high. 

45 



THE BOOK OF WASHINi&TON 

There is a smaller Green Raom, a room of dignity 
and charm, a room of beauty. There is the won- 
derful Blue Room, superbly proportioned, with its 
beauty markedly increased by its elliptical shape. 
The golden eagles above the windows, the marble 
mantel, are but some of the special features of this 
room. 

A prominent southern novelist tells of being taken, 
young secessionist though she was, to a Lincoln 
reception and of his standing at the door of this 
Green Room speaking gently to her and taking her 
hand in his, and of how even toward the close of 
her life, as she writes of it, ''I can distinctly remem- 
ber that the power of Abraham Lincoln's personality 
impressed itself upon me for a lifetime. Everything 
faded out of sight beside the apparition of the new 
President towering there." 

Curiously, Roosevelt writes much like this young 
Southern girl: "I think of Lincoln shambling, 
homely, with his strong, sad, deeply-furrowed face, 
all the time. I see him in the different rooms and 
in the halls. For some reason or other he is to me 
infinitely the most real of the dead Presidents. ' ' 

One of the most curious facts in regard to Lincoln 
is that when he was an unnoticed Congressman be- 
fore the Civil War, he so little felt his own high 
destiny that he made an effort to become a Wash- 
ington office-holder, securing the endorsement of 
a number of influential Senators and Representa- 
tives to his application. It is rather appalling to 
think that if he had become a Washington desk-man 

46 



A CUKIOUS VISIT 

he would never, in all probability, have had a career 
worthy of even the most casual notice. 

The Red Room is another apartment, palatial in 
its effectiveness although, like the last mentioned 
two, it is intended for more intimate use than the 
spacious East Room. 

And how brave were the early Americans who 
dared to plan so large and beautiful a palace in what 
was a wilderne&s! It was to quite an extent for 
effect upon foreign nations as well as upon America. 
Washington himself believed in the necessity for a 
fitting habitation for the coming line of Presidents. 
The best American homes of the time were beautiful, 
therefore the White House ought to be fittingly 
beautiful. 

To walk through these great and splendid rooms, 
as we did on almost the last day of the Wilson 
administration, gave an effect as if, in their richness 
of beauty, they were abandoned, deserted, forsaken, 
and that we were ghosts softly treading from room 
to room. I knew that in another portion of the 
house were the private apartments of the President. 
I knew that in that wing to the westward, so admira- 
bly constructed to be utilitarian without injury to 
artistic outlines, were the busy executive offices ; but 
none of that busy fife and none of the family life 
was indicated as we went slowly through the splen- 
did deserted apartments. 

We went into the State dining room, a sumptuous 
apartment of rich and restrained effectiveness, finely 
paneled, with a great fireplace of stone of elaborate 

47 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

workmanship, fi'nely worked out in beauty of detail. 
And here, in the room made for friends and hospi- 
tality, for the glow of wit and life, the loneliness 
was more marked than even in the great East Room. 
*'I felt like one who treads alone some banquet hall 
deserted": never before had I recognized the full 
strength of those simple old lines. I have been in 
deserted old-time palaces in Europe and have felt 
the loneliness of effect, but here, in this building 
which would normally be full of present-day life, 
it was almost uncanny. 

There has been more individual talking in this 
dining room than in any other room in America. 
For every President has found that all his guests 
were ready to listen silently when he talked, and the 
temptation to talk was irresistible. Even the grim 
President Jackson talked. '* Indeed, he did nothing 
but talk," wrote Harriet Martineau after dining 
with him. 

No President loved to talk in the White House as 
did Roosevelt, who frequently said that he "had a 
bully time" there. And no President so loved to 
ask all sor«ts of distinguished or about-to-be-distin- 
guished men to lunch with him as did Roosevelt. 
And thousands treasured the big square envelopes 
which held the precious paste-boards of invitation 
to sit at luncheon with this delightful monologuist. 

In contrast to all this comes the haunting story 
of George Washington and Mrs. Washington driving 
up from Mount Vernon and walking slowly through 
the almost completed Wliite House, without com- 

48 



A CURIOUS VISIT 

panions of any sort. For they felt intense personal 
interest in the building although John and Abi- 
gail Adams were to be the first occupants. But I 
do not remember any allusion by Washington to his 
thus going through the building, near the end of his 
life, not even in his diary. And so the story comes 
down as a sort of myth, true though it must have 
been. 

Of especial interest, in the White House, are the 
portraits, for there are many here, of Presidents 
and the wives of Presidents and many others. No 
other record is so good, for enabling a final histori- 
cal judgment to be made, as are the portraits of 
national leaders. 

After all, to become President requires much of 
greatness, and there have been many degrees of 
greatness in the White House. Healy^s numerous 
portraits possess the veritable quality which he 
usually managed to show, but most of the others are 
not even as good as Healy's, though one may gain a 
fairly good general idea from them. What one 
would most of all like to see is an excellent George 
Washington, an excellent Lincoln, and, whether or 
not one likes him and his methods, one would like 
to see a realistic Wilson. And will not the future 
be concerned with Roosevelt? 

There is a portrait of Washington in the White 
House, and it is of curious interest, for it is the one 
which Dolly Madison ordered taken from its frame 
and carried to distant safety at the time of the raid 
in the War of 1812. It is often referred to as a 

49 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

genuine Gilbert Stuart, and Dolly Madison herself 
took it to be a Stuart. But in reality it is one of the 
copies made by that Winstanley who had an uncanny 
faculty of following Stuart's style, without any 
scruple whatever as to passing his products off as 
genuine Stuarts. Stuart, naturally, abhorred him, 
and drove him from liis studio in Germantown, when 
he went there to ask Stuart to make two or three 
brush marks on each of his Washingtons, so that 
without contradiction he could declare them to be 
the work of Stuart; the two to divide the money 
thus made. Stuart himself painted a constant line 
of replicas of his own best Washington, which is 
now in Boston, and these he readily sold, calling 
them his hundred dollar bills, for they were always 
in demand. The portrait of Mrs. Washington at 
the White House is of no real value, as it was 
painted but a few years ago. 

It was in front of the Winstanley Washington 
that John Adams, on one of his choleric and hasty 
days, stood and shook his fist, squeaking in the high 
notes into which his voice sometimes ran: *^If that 
wooden-headed man hadn't kept his mouth shut, 
he'd have been found out!" 

Next to the Washington portrait in interest, is 
that of Benjamin Franklin. It was carried away 
without permission by Major Andre from Franklin 's 
home in Philadelphia. Andre gave it to the vigor- 
ous General Grey, his superior on whose staff he was. 
General Grey carried it to England. It was shown 
to Ambassador Choate, in 1900, at Howick Hall, in 

50 



A CURIOUS VISIT 

Northumberland, by a descendant of General Grey, 
Earl Grey. As a consequence, within a few years, 
in the administration of Roosevelt, Earl Grey sent 
the painting back to America, with the request that 
it be kept in the White House, and Roosevelt placed 
it there. 

The entrance to the spot where stood the fine 
house of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, built 
by him after prosperity and fame had come, is by 
means of little Orianna Street ; leading off Market ; 
and on Orianna Street was the little printing house 
where James Wilson, the Irish immigrant grand- 
father of Woodrow Wilson, worked as a journeyman 
printer. 

When we turned to leave the White House after 
our curious visit of 'loneliness, we went out past the 
door of the East Room, and glancing in at the mov- 
ing picture machine, there again came vivid thoughts 
of the immolated President sitting in that great 
room, perhaps entirely alone, feeding his strange 
mentality with dreams from the pictures. 

On leaving, it was quietly suggested that if we 
cared to see President Wilson closely, face to face, 
we need but go down to a remote rear gate, used by 
the President on returning from his motor rides. 
We waited there until there was an odd sound of a 
horn from the rear of the White House. It was 
curiously like the signal that used to be made when 
the Kaiser was entering Unter den Linden. There 
was a scarcely perceptible sign from the head police- 
man, and instantly all traffic was stopped on three 

51 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

streets and with absolute unobtrusiveness of action. 
A few seconds, and a great open motor car came 
swiftly on. It turned into the gateway, which was 
so narrow that the car had to check its speed almost 
to nothingness. A car followed, literally loaded 
with secret service men. Standing at this gate I 
looked directly into the President's face at the dis- 
tance of not more than four feet. His face was 
pallor-stricken, a face of grayish white, an unf orget- 
able, an uncanny face. Forcefulness, will power, 
unshakable determination were there, and the eyes 
had a burning intentness. The car passed on, and 
the thought came of the contrasts in this 
man: ruler of the world, devoted attendant on vau- 
deville shows, close student of the world's history, 
lover of moving pictures, staid college president, 
tosser of base balls, rager at those who opposed him, 
and happy utterer of such dry humor as, *'Tlie A, 
B, C, of politics, is in the Primary." 




52 



CHAPTER IV 



OUR APPIAN WAY 





HEN Commo- 
dore Decatur left 
his home near the 
White House before 
dawTi one morning, to 
go to breakfast with Com- 
modore Bainbridge, who was 
in a few hours to be his 
second in the fatal duel 
with Commodore Barron 
— how easily one may 
drop into the European 
habit of rolling titles one upon another! — he fol- 
lowed in the faint light of the coming morning the 
whole length of our Appian Way. One pictures 
him busy with thoughts of breakfast and dueling, 
swinging down the road with all the dash of his 
** right or wrong, my country!" This lonely hurry 
of Decatur, in the vague half light of coming day, 
has always seemed to me one of the most striking 
of the teeming associations of our national thorough- 
fare; Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House 
to the Capitol being called our Appian Way because 
almost every American, well known in any walk of 

53 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

life, political, literary, legal, artistic, ministerial, 
mechanical, managerial, and uncountable millions 
of the not well known, have followed this road be- 
tween the White House and the Capitol. 

Pennsylvania Avenue in both directions extends 
beyond the mile and a half of the so called Appian 
Way. On the far side of the Capitol it goes as far 
as the Anacostia. In the other direction, beyond 
the White House it taps Georgetown. But it is the 
portion between the Capitol and White House that 
is fittingly given the old Roman name. 

In the earliest days, before the road was anything 
but a trail, George Washington himself used to fol- 
low it. Jefferson planted it mth lines of poplar 
trees. Since then millions have followed its length, 
including not only Americans from every State in 
the Union but great numbers of foreigners from 
every part of the world. 

Inaugural processions, the mighty parade of the 
armies at the close of the Civil War, statesmen, 
generals. Presidents, men on evil errands or good: 
men and women walking, riding, driving, on foot, on 
horseback, in carriages, in street cars, in motorcars-: 
and it is no jest to add, in airplanes. 

Rome still has its Appian Way and it may be 
followed through the purple haze that makes mys- 
terious the ancient ruins. London has its Appian 
Way, now kiwwn as Watling Street, along which the 
greatest men of the world have gone throughout the 
centuries : Julius Caesar himself, Alfred the Great, 
William the Conqueror, statesmen, poets, generals, 

54 



OUR APPIAN WAY 

kings, even poor little David Copperfield, running 
away from the bottling works, and Dickens himself. 
And Dickens was one of the many millions who have 
gone over this American highway. 

Necessarily it is far from being as old as those 
roads at London or Rome; but after all age is but 
comparative. London is not so old as Rome : Wash- 
ington is not so old as London: but each city has 
won its place in the history of the world, and even 
this American Appian Way has in its century and 
a quarter of existence gathered about it a hazy at- 
mosphere as of a distant past. 

It was Thomas Jefferson, man of so many flashes 
of inspiration, who, in the early days of the city, 
termed this road the Appian Way, for he saw even 
then its unique importance of situation and use. 

Leaving the White House and the enormous un- 
gainly State, War, and Navy Building adjoining, 
and you find on your right the huge and positively 
beautiful Treasury Building. How superbly de- 
signed! Classic in every detail, with great pillars, 
with a colonnade of stately Ionic columns, with great 
pediments, and broad sweeps of stone steps, with 
hundreds of rooms, it is in all a splendid and im- 
posing building. 

It is unfortunate in its location, in that it stands 
forever — if one may dare to use the word ''for- 
ever !"^ — a mighty structure immediately between 
the White House and Capitol at the very beginning 
of the Appian Way, cutting off the view which these 
two buildings were intended to have of each other. 

55 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

A little variation would have obviated the fault : but 
it was in the time of Czar-minded Andrew Jackson, 
and he was as impatient and arbitrary as the Rus- 
sian Czar who, irritated regarding the line of a rail- 
way that was to be built, marked a straight line, and 
said curtly * ' Follow that. ' ' And Jackson, impatient 
of delay as to locating and beginning, struck his 
cane upon the ground with a peremptory **Put it 
here"! And here it was put. And, although not 
altogether the best relative location, it is a location 
which at least gives the building splendid promi- 
nence. And, if anything, superb though the main 
front is, there is in some respects somewhat more of 
charm, and quite as much of splendid dignity, in the 
front facing southward. 

It is from the southern front that Pennsylvania 
Avenue goes on its Appian Way. Here it is that 
the mistake of location as to this building is ap- 
parent, for at the very beginning of the thorough- 
fare far down here, cut off by the Treasury, there is 
much of the unattractive, the insignificant, amazing 
to be found, so close to the White House. 

Immediately north of this vicinity is a group of 
hotels, two of them bearing names known for genera- 
tions in Washington hotel life. One is the Willard. 
The Willards — there were several of them — came to 
Washington through a curious circumstance. There 
was a hotel, not entirely a success, built by one of 
the Tayloe family, distinguished Southerners, near 
the White House. Odd, how many distinguished 
families go in for hotels ! But then, the dukes, espe- 

56 



OUR APPIAN WAY 

cially Westminster and Bedford, have long been 
doing it in London : perhaps are doing it even yet. 

Mrs. Tayloe was a Northern woman: she remem- 
bered the steward in charge of the dining room of 
one of the Hudson River steamers. He was written 
for: he came: he used to stand, white aproned, at 
the head of the table, and carve. He sent for his 
brothers: and Willard thus became a well-known 
name among hotel keepers of Washington. 

And when a Willard 's Hotel arose, there was a 
gathering of a hundred or so distinguished men, and 
the exclusive New Englander, Edward Everett, 
made a speech, in appreciation of the good work 
done by the principal brother, the one of the steam- 
boat : Everett declaring that it was not an occasion 
for Mr. Willard to return thanks for the honor of 
their gathering, but for them to return thanks to 
him. And he recalled that, among those dead and 
gone who had benefited by Willard 's hotel activities 
and purveying, had been such men as Chief Justice 
Marshall, John Quincy Adams, Calhoun, Clay and 
Webster. Gastronomic devotion was not taken care- 
lessly by the statesmen of those days ! 

In early years, Pennsylvania Aveime was but little 
of a pathway of any kind. It was mainly a deep 
morass covered with alder bushes. Shortly before 
the Capitol was reached, the road, or marshy trail, 
was crossed by a little stream — large, in rainy 
weather, and even at the present time existent but 
piped away in safety. It was known as the Tiber and 
it is generally believed, though personally I doubt it, 

57 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

that it bore that classic name before the Oapitol was 
ever thought of. It is on the L 'Enfant map by this 
name, but that does not prove when or by whom it 
was named. The little stream at times gave com- 
plete impassibility to the trail, and it has been told 
that not infrequently Congressmen, arriving on 
horseback, have tied their horses to branches and 
scrambled precariously over fallen trees. Bulfinch, 
the architect, somewhere writes of the ^'vale" be- 
tween Capitol and White House. Others have re- 
corded that skiffs were at times actually rowed on 
Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Even as late as when Dickens came to America, 
the avenue was often very muddy indeed, an avenue 
difficult to travel. Dickens did not see the future: 
he told of spacious avenues that began in nothing 
and led nowhere ; he saw streets whose only want, so 
he declared sarcastically, was houses, roads and in- 
habitants. He was practically as short-sighted as 
Tom Moore, who jibed at "this embryo capitol 
where Fancy sees squares in morasses, obelisks in 
trees." 

Where the tall Raleigh Hotel now stands, there 
stood in the Civil War days, an earlier hotel dis- 
tinguished above its fellows by the fact, that there 
Andrew Johnson was hastily sworn in as President 
on the April night after Lincoln's death. 

Just at the edge of Pennsylvania Avenue between 
Seventh and Ninth Streets is Center Market. It is 
altogether disproportionate to its actual importance, 
for it is a building that was put up to replace a 

58 



OUR APPIAN WAY 

structure that really did possess quite a degree of 
picturesqueness, and as I write there is a plan to do 
away "vvith it altogether. 

In the public mind, the present market structure 
stands for the picturesque association of the past: 
when leaders in society and in politics came here in 
person, to choose their fruits and vegetables, their 
fish, their fowl, their cuts of meat, their great tur- 
tles. 

How much more of the picturesque life held in 
those days ! The stately Webster was often here in 
all the glory of his blue coat with gilt buttons, his 
white cravat, his silk stockings, his varnished shoes 
and yellow gloves as on the morning of the day on 
which he received the twenty-five thousand dollars 
raised in State Street, and the twenty-five thousand 
raised in Wall Street, to make it seem financially 
possible for him, so it was quietly understood, to 
make what he deemed the sacrifice of taking the 
office of Secretary of State : and never was he more 
solicitous to select the perfect shad : never more the 
man of dignity, with no thoughts, so far as his su- 
perb appearance went, of anything below mighty 
affairs of state. General Scott, six feet four inches 
in height and remembered as an epicure, personally 
went marketing for his family. His favorite dish 
was terrapin — pronouncing it *'tarrapin" — and he 
ordered liis oysters by the barrel. 

From Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite the middle 
of Center Market, may be seen close at hand to the 
north a beautiful high-set pillared building of stone, 

59 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

a veritable Doric temple : but this beautiful building 
merely faces down Eighth Street, which is almost 
wholly lined, in this section, with garages and sta- 
bles. It is curious that this unusually beautiful 
building, now used as the Patent Office, stands where 
L 'Enfant planned to locate the Chapel of all Eeli- 
gions. 

Pennsylvania Avenue, wliich ought to be the most 
dignified of all the avenues of the city, has an aston- 
ishing proportion of the shabby and the unimpor- 
tant. This is especially true of the district between 
the pleasant greenery round Center Market and the 
Capitol, and this does not refer to many excellent 
buildings that have deteriorated, but to buildings 
that from the first were inadequate. The dignity 
of the avenue is upheld by the high-cockaded, high- 
mounted Pulaski, in bronze, and the little park about 
the Pole — and helped also by the little stubby, long- 
waisted Benjamin Franklin in white marble, phil- 
osophizing over the sidewalk, one of fewer than half 
a dozen civilian in-the-streets statues that come to 
mind as I write, three others being Longfellow, 
Witherspoon and a Masonic Pike. 

The building of the great new Union Station has 
worked an immense influence upon the city, making 
permanent, and increasing, the movement that had 
already begun, to take away much of the business, 
much of the traffic and travel from Pennsylvania 
Avenue. It used to be that everybody was on much 
of the Avenue much of the time. Now it is quite 
possible for visitors scarcely to see Pennsylvania 

60 



OUR APPIAN WAY 

Avenue at all ! And this, whether they go about on 
foot, in street cars or in motor cars. But it Avill 
probably long continue to be the thoroughfare of the 
nation. 

A little more than half way toward the Capitol is 
a really old-time hotel: dormered: with galleries 
two stories high, of Southern type, a reminder that 
this is essentially a Southern city; a hotel with an 
air of the past, although without a full share of its 
picturesqueness. It is associated with many fa- 
mous names, for it was long the principal hotel of 
politicians and statesmen. 

Few of the associations of Pennsylvania Avenue 
are more full of interest than the inaugural parades 
that have gone through this thoroughfare. There 
was Taf t 's ; notable for the terrifically bad weather, 
although the weather man had promised a beautiful 
day. There was Polk's, when it was so muddy and 
slippery that marching was almost impossible, and 
soldiers in the line slipped and fell in the mud. 
There was the second Wilson parade, when among 
those prominent was the Governor of Mississippi 
with his military staff : in carriages. But what they 
lacked in mounts they made up in titles, in the es- 
timate of the wicked-minded onlooker who declared 
that he counted thirty-eight majors ! 

Senator McDougall of California, a bitter oppo- 
nent of Seward, leaving the Capitol one evening af- 
ter a storm, stumbled into a ditch of dirty running 
water as he started down Pennsylvania Avenue, and 
with difficulty, and with the aid of a policeman, got 

61 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

out. ''Who are you?" asked the policeman. Mc- 
Dougall looked ruefully down at his ruined clothes. 
''I was — I was Senator McDougall — but now — now 
—I think I'm Seward!" 

Daniel Webster himself, one day, found the car- 
riage in which he was driving suddenly mired in the 
mud of the avenue, whereupon, after vain effort for 
release, the driver lifted the mighty orator in his 
arms and bore him to the curb. 

Not only the living, but the dead, have traversed 
our famous way. Here Garfield was shot, in a rail- 
way station since torn down : and through the length 
of the avenue his body, brought back from the sea- 
shore, where he died, was solemnly carried, the center 
of a nation ^s grief, over the route which he had on 
his inaugural parade so recently traversed. 

Along this avenue, too, moved the solemn parade 
of those who followed the dead body of the mighty 
Lincoln, in silence unbroken except by footfalls, by 
the slow music of funeral marches, by the dirges, the 
muffled drums the sobs of the people. 




62 



CHAPTER V 



THE CAPITOL 




IKE the ancient Romans we 
modern Americans have our 
Capitol as well as our Appian 
way; and whereas the 
first formal founding 
feast of Rome itself, 
was the lupine luncheon 
of Romulus and Remus 
Avith their four-footed 
hostess, the first for- 
mal founding feast of 
our Capitol, which ac- 
companied the laying of 
its corner-stone, was also a feast out of doors. It 
was a barbecue. A great ox was roasted in what the 
newspapers of the day delightfully referred to as 
a ''cavazion,'^ into wliich George Washington 
descended and from which he emerged, presiding 
over all of the ceremonies, at which, according to a 
narrative of the time, there was ''every abundance 
of other recreation" — which was not meant to be a 
doubtful statement! 

Washington presided over the exercises as a Ma- 
son : and it has been stated and it is probably true 

63 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

that every President of the United States but two 
has been of the Masonic fraternity. 

The corner-stone was laid on a September day of 
1793 at what was then the southeast corner of the 
building, as it is expressed on a long inscription on 
a silver plate with the statement, signed by James 
Hoban and Stephen Hallate — his name however be- 
ing usually spelled Hallett — as architects, and by 
*' Joseph Clark, E. W. G. M. P. T."! whatever all 
this initialing may have meant. 

Near the corner-stone, which is not far from the 
center of the east front of the building as it stands, is 
what at first seems an insignificant door into the 
basement story, under the center portico, but one 
may notice that the door is one of the special fea- 
tures of the Capitol, for it has beautiful pillars inside 
the doorway, with the famous corn-stalk design of 
Latrobe, a highly American feature and design ; and 
close beside it there is a beautifully designed spiral 
stair of marble with most graceful balustrades of 
wrought-iron. 

It may be said that there were really several archi- 
tects of the Capitol. At least there was a combina- 
tion of plans and ideas. Hallett, of Philadelphia, at 
first came nearest to pleasing President Washington, 
and the committee that with him was to decide upon 
a design. There was a competition, and the prize 
of five hundred dollars was awarded to Hallett. 
Then came in some plans from a Doctor Thornton 
in the West Indies ; a Quaker Englishman who had 

64 



THE CAPITOL 

served as a cavalry officer in the Revolutionary War, 
and his plans pleased more than did those of Hallett. 
There were attempts to harmonize the two men and 
their plans, but as harmonizing was impossible La- 
trobe was made supervising architect. A man full 
of original ideas, ^dth a wide knowledge of European 
arcliitecture, he had even taken a commission for a 
while as captain in the Prussian army ; and after his 
connection with the Capitol, he went west to Pitts- 
burg, near which city a town still bears his name, and 
still later to New Orleans, where he died. 

The city has not been a one-man city nor has the 
Capitol been a one-man building ; and when Latrobe 
after a while was dropped, the still greater Bul- 
finch, the New Englander with experience on the 
Boston State House, was placed in charge. 

Bulfinch had toured Europe as a young man in 
1785. Even before that he had felt a tendency to- 
ward building, and in Paris had been aided to see 
things by the architectural-minded Thomas Jeffer- 
son, whom he met there. Writing of Paris, the 
buildings are what he first of all mentions. He then 
went through much of France and Italy, and in tell- 
ing of the things of interest that he saw, he said: 
'* particularly the wonders of architecture." 

It would seem as if his seeing so many fine build- 
ings in Europe rather discouraged him when he 
came to the necessarily simple American towns. 
After he put up the Boston State House he believed 
that everything in the way of public buildings was 

65 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

built, and he actually influenced his own son from 
following architecture, believing that no more great 
buildings would be needed. 

It is curious that no great part of the early 
Capitol was the work of professional architects. 
And it is curious that the White House was inspired 
by a building in Ireland and planned by a non-pro- 
fessional, and that the Capitol had as first designer a 
doctor from the West Indies. After all, architects 
are not valuable because of being architects but for 
the buildings they make: which obvious truth has 
been much too often overlooked. 

The finest in America in early years were built by 
architecture-loving amateurs: as Monticello, by 
Jefferson. The three beautiful old brick State 
Houses of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsjd- 
vania, were built at the early period when they were 
Province Houses. The two finest old buildings of 
Philadelphia, and they are still standing to prove 
their beauty, were designed, one by a local lawyer, 
the other by a local doctor! 

The Capitol is on a plateau, eighty-eight feet above 
the Potomac River, and practically the same 
height above the low-lying land that stretches away 
from its western front. The length of the building 
is seven hundred and fifty-one feet, and the greatest 
dimension of its varying width is three hundred and 
fifty feet. 

It is vast, huge, profoundly impressive. It thrills 
with pride every American. 

Above the plateau on which the Capitol stand? 

6(i 



THE CAPITOL 

rises the dome, to a height of almost three hundred 
feet, and it is topped by a bronze statue of Freedom, 
by Crawford, which is itself within a few inches of 
twenty feet in height. Liberty wears a liberty cap 
but not of the European type but distinctively Amer- 
ican, it being of eagles' feathers. A most curious 
feature of this liberty cap, designed and used in this 
way, is that it was suggested to Crawford by Jeffer- 
son Davis ! 

These feathers are of the fine upstanding kind that 
Admiral Sampson had in mind when he was guest of 
honor at a dinner given by the bluff old English sea- 
dog Admiral Fisher. Sampson, so Fisher narrates, 
sat silent until the dinner was almost over even 
when toasts were proposed to himself and his 
country. Then he suddenly rose and said only, "It 
was a damned fine old hen that hatched the American 
Eagle!" 

The building has a wealth of columns, terraces, 
balustrades, arcades ; and in both fronts are majes- 
tic flights of majestic steps, giving important and 
temple-like approaches. 

To the eastward the level land stretches off su- 
perbly, with first a great paved esplanade for vehicle 
approach and then the great open park, wide as the 
great Capitol, stretcliing out liberally away to the 
Congressional Library. At the western front the 
land drops quickly away to the level, eighty feet be- 
low. Bulfinch, when he first saw the Capitol, whose 
construction he was comjmissioned to continue, at 
once saw that there was danger in the nearness of 

67 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

so heavy a building to the edge, and he gave great 
care to strengthening and planning retaining walls 
and the stairways which are still such an aspect of 
this approach. 

An astonishing feature of the Capitol is the insig- 
nificance of the main entrance-way on either front. 
Latrobe 's own idea as to this was to have a beautiful 
Grecian portico at the central entrance. 

On the pediment of the grand central portico is an 
effort at designing a group of sculpture, by John 
Quincy Adams, who was then a versatile Secretary of 
State. It represents what Adams himself called the 
*' Genius of America," with the Goddess of Liberty 
morally and neatly supported by Justice and Hope. 

The dome of the Capitol, so magnificent in appear- 
ance in its exterior, loses nothing of magnificence in 
its interior view. It is almost one hundred feet in 
diameter and its lower portion, the Rotunda, is sur- 
rounded by a series of large historical paintings, of 
which those by John Trumbull are by far the best. 
This same John, who won high fame as a painter, 
had taken active part in the Revolutionary War, 
had become a colonel, and had been made military 
secretary by Washington. He was the son of Gov- 
ernor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, the origi- 
nal "Brother Jonathan." 

As did such a proportion of early American 
painters, he went to Europe to complete his artistic 
training, and while there, there arose within Mm the 
ambition to make for his nation a series of paintings 
representing the most important features of Ameri- 

68 



THE CAPITOL 

can history. He went back and forth among the 
European cities, seeking out and portraying such 
historical American characters as were then on the 
other side of the Atlantic: including John Adams, 
who was representing America in London, and Jeff- 
erson who was similarly in Paris. This part of his 
work covered some years following the close of the 
War of 1812. Abigail Adams, seeing one of his 
American paintings in London wrote: '*H,e is the 
first painter who hag undertaken to immortalize 
those great actions that gave birth to our Nation. 
By this means he will not only secure his own fame, 
but transmit to posterity characters and actions 
which will command the admiration of future ages. ' * 
Coming back to America, he sought out other living 
Americans, and for those who were dead he copied 
the best available portraits. Washington himself, 
he not only remembered but had made of him, in the 
course of the Kevolutionary War, what is always 
considered one of the most interesting of Washing- 
ton portraits. 

It was after more than thirty years of preparation 
that the American Government commissioned him to 
paint four great paintings. 

Most important is the Signing of the Declaration 
of Independence, the arrangement of the figures be- 
ing made as Jefferson, Franklin and others described 
it to him. In looking at different prints or engrav- 
ings of his Signing one notices, and wonders about, 
the fact that they are not all quite alike as to the 
members included or their Dostures. They are al- 

69 



THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 

most alike, but the differences have come from 
Trumbull's having made several slightly varying 
replicas of this painting: one being in New Haven 
and another of them being in Hartford. 

Besides the painting of the Declaration there are 
three other large paintings by Trumbull, bought by 
the Government, and placed here around the lower 
part of the Rotunda. The second picture is of the 
Surrender of Burgoyne and was painted from 
sketches made on the spot by Trumbull in 1777. 

It shows among the trees of the locality a score or 
so of officers all without hats, an unusual feature. 
The third painting represents the Surrender of 
Cornwallis ; and the marching of the British soldiers 
between the lines of French and Americans is not 
fanciful but represents the scene just as Trumbull 
saw it, he having been present. The fourth and last 
Trumbull painting is of the Resignation of Wash- 
ington fts commander-in-chief. 

If any one wishes to see the coat worn by Wash- 
ington on the occasion, it may be seen at the 
National Museum, and the commission which he 
surrendered is preserved in the Department of 
State, and the room is still in Annapolis ! 

Never was a better criticism made of the great 
marble reliefs which have been placed around the 
Rotunda than was made by a Menominee Indian 
chief. He looked at the sculpture of the landing of 
the Pilgrims, over the eastern doorway, and said: 
** Indians give white man corn." He gazed for a 
time at one of the Indians making the treaty mth 

70 



THE CAPITOL 

Penn and said: ''Indians give white man land." 
He then turned to Pocahontas saving the life of 
Captain Smith", and here his sober comment was: 
''Indian saves white man's life." Then he looked 
at the relief over the last door, of Daniel Boone with 
his foot on the body of a dead Indian, plunging his 
knife into the heart of another : and at this his eyes 
gleamed and he said sternly: "See! White man 
kills Indian." 

It used to be, for no reason quite apparent, that 
Washington was called the city of magnificent dis- 
tances. Had the Capitol been called the building 
of magnificent distances, it would have been another 
matter, for there are what seem to be interminable 
corridorsu 

One's first impression is naturally that the Cap- 
itol is used almost altogether by the Senate and the 
House of Representatives, but their meeting halls 
take much less than half of the total space of the 
building, the main part of it being given up to com- 
mittee rooms, document rooms, ofiices of clerks, 
cloak rooms, lunch rooms, reception rooms, corri- 
dors and libraries. In addition, between the 
Eotunda and the Hall of Representatives, is Statu- 
ary Hall. Between the Rotunda and the Senate 
Chamber is the United States Supreme Court. In 
the passages are signal lights, so arranged as to tell 
whether or not either body is in session. 

Statuary Hall was originally the meeting room of 
the Representatives and it was in this room that all 
the early Representatives spoke, including Clay and 

71 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Webster, Calhoun, Randolph and Cass. It was in 
tliis room that former President John Quincy 
Adams, then a Representative from Massachusetts, 
was struck down by paralysis only to die two days 
later in an adjoining apartment. Henry Watter- 
son, then a lad, and at the present day only recently 
dead, after a life of unususal prominence and activ- 
ity, was near Adams when he fell, and went with 
him as he was carried into the ante-room and knelt 
beside him, fanning him. Watterson, it may be 
added, was very fortunate as a young man as to 
being present on important occasions. He was just 
naturally born that way. He stood close to Lincoln 
at Lincoln's first inauguration, narrowly observed 
him, as only a young man like Watterson could, and 
\vrote down that the new President looked dignified, 
firm and self-possessed, and '*as if he had been de- 
livering inaugural addresses all his life." 

All through the corridors and in vistas or niches 
are statues or paintings of Americans and Ameri- 
can events calculated to stir patriotic feelings. It 
gives a national and historic background to transact 
public business near paintings such as the ''Battle 
of Lake Erie" and the "Attack on Chapultepec." 

Statuary Hall, a semi-circular room nearly one 
hundred feet in its greatest width and whose ceiling 
is a high half dome, was originally and for many 
years the Hall of the House of Representatives, 
and it is a very much more beautiful and more im- 
pressive room than the present Hall of the House of 
Representatives. 

72 



THE CAPITOL 

It was in the time of the Civil War that the sug- 
gestion was made and approved that this earlier 
Hall of the House should be used as a hall of me- 
morial statuary of great Americans, each State to 
choose its own two examples and to present the 
statues in either marble or bronze. 

In a way this room is like that part of Westmins- 
ter Abbey where there are so many monuments and 
memorials, for both the English collection and the 
American contain a marked proportion of men whose 
particular fame has already been forgotten. At 
the same time both collections are impressive in their 
showing that both nations are striving to do honor 
to those who have honored them and to point out 
to posterity the great national achievements of the 
past. 

An amusing and in some respects even absurd 
feature of Statuary Hall is that some physically 
insignificant men have large statues* and tower above 
such physically great men as Washington and Web- 
ster. 

The statue of Webster was not sent by Massa- 
chusetts, whose adopted son he was, but by New 
Hampshire, where he was born. Massachusetts did 
not forgive Webster's notable speech, which was 
taken to be in favor of slavery. Wliittier, the 
Quaker, killed him with a few strokes of the pen in 
the tremendous * ' Ichabod, ' ' one of the most terrible 
of attacks. 

Yet in spite of this loss of prestige, Joseph H. 
Choate has declared that to Webster, more than to 

73 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

any other man, was owing the fiery promptitude 
with which the North sprang to arms in defense of 
the Union — Webster having been pre-eminently the 
defender of the Constitution. 

Ethan Allen, who was not a particularly large 
man, was a man not only of heroic deeds, but he was 
provided with a statue of heroic size by the State 
of Vermont. Ethan Allen would not have objected 
to over publicity, for one day, when he attended 
church in a Vermont town, the minister spoke in the 
highest terms of the men of Bennington, but did not 
name Ethan Allen as a hero of the battle; where- 
upon Allen arose in his pew and said, ''Please let 
the Almighty know I was there ! ' ' 

Washington and Robert E. Lee naturally are Vir- 
ginia's favorite sons, Washington's statue being by 
the famous Houdon, who had been employed by 
Virginia to make a Washington statue and who lived 
for a time at Mount Vernon studying his subject. 
Richmond has the original and the city of Washing- 
ton a replica. Lee's was placed here in the 1900 's. 

In 1921 the Suffragists had a three-headed statue 
made out of a monster block of marble, out of wliich 
rise three heads intended to represent Elizabeth 
Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anth- 
ony. The Suffragists hoped that this statue would 
be placed either in Statuary Hall or the Rotunda, 
and, to be ready for its unveiling, it was hauled up 
into the €apitol by powerful mnches. Passing 
there, within a few days after its unveiling, I saw 
the workmen conveying the statue down again, as it 

74 



THE CAPITOL 

was declared to be too heavy for any part of the 
floor, and it is now tucked away in the crj-pt. 

When Statuary Hall was the Hall of Representa- 
tives, it was recognized as having poor acoustic 
properties. However, so many admirable things 
were said there that this was largely overlooked. 
Here the then Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, 
eloquently welcomed Lafayette as the guest of the 
nation, and here Lafayette, in eloquently flowing 
periods, replied — so eloquently and so flowingly in 
fact, that shrewd listeners quickly realized that al- 
though the words were spoken by Lafayette they 
were in reality the composition of Henry -Clay. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, who restlessly went to 
Washington, in the course of the Civil War, took 
comfort in finding artists busily at work in esthetic 
embellishment of the dome of the Capitol while other 
people were so worried about the fate of the nation. 
At those very times, down in the basement floor, 
barrels of cement had been placed as barricades; 
some of the basement corridors were used for stor- 
ing army provisions; there were rooms making a 
great wartime hospital, and in other parts of the 
basement bakeries were in operation, making as 
many as sixteen thousand loaves of bread a day for 
the army. 

One is well repaid by wandering through the old 
part of the basement area, with its scores of heavy 
columns, its passages, its remarkable domed vault. 
Here underneath the center of the Rotunda, it was 
early planned to place forever the body of George 

75 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Washington. The plan got so far that his widow 
gave her formal assent to it. For some unknown 
reason the plan was dropped, but not until a '' keeper 
of the crypt" — what a feudal flavor the title has! — 
had been appointed. And for fifty years a salary 
was paid for the supposititious performance of the 
duties of keeper of the crypt. 




76 



CHAPTER VI 



**GBAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS' 



T 



EAELY the most 
important points of 
distinction in the 
career of Chief 
Justice Marshall 
seem to have been, 
r^<=*. first, that he took 
'^J^_^^ an active part, 
under Washin^on, 
in the attack on 
^- the home of the 
then Colonial 
Chief Justice 
Chew in German- 
town; second, 
that he has by all 
means the greatest claim among Americans to pro- 
ficiency in the old-time game of quoits. Chester 
Harding, the painter who went from the wilderness 
of western New York to Paris to establish himself 
as an artist — but Paris in Kentucky! — and after- 
wards to Washington and to Great Britain to paint 
all the great ones of the day, describes the enthusi- 
asm of Chief Justice Marshall at a game of quoits, 
kneeling on the ground, measuring with a straw, 

77 







THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

calling out in excitement: in fact not acting at all 
with the tremendous dignity with which less than 
an hour before he had presided over the Supreme 
Court of the United States. After mentioning the 
above two points of distinction it may be well to put 
in a reminder that he was the ablest in the entire 
line of American Chief Justices. 

Like the House of Representatives, the Senate 
gave up old quarters for new when the Capitol 
spread its wings to its present dimensions. The 
room, the special triumph of Latrobe, which used to 
be occupied by the Senate is now the court room of 
the Supreme Court. It is a distinguished room of 
unusual design and the Bench is a straight row of 
nine big black easy chairs occupied by the Supreme 
Justices and at once attracting the eye. The gold 
eagle chair in the middle is naturally the chair of 
the Chief Justice. 

Behind the Bench is a long arcade fronted by 
pillars of Potomac marble supporting a narrow 
gallery, and above the gallery curves a great cas- 
setted arch. The rest of the ceiling is cassetted 
on the curve of a flattish half-dome. 

There are concentric rows of dark upholstered 
settees for spectators, facing the seats of the Jus- 
tices. There is not room for many of these seats, 
but many are not needed for almost all the visitors 
stay but a few minutes and hurry away, most of 
them considering the session merely as a spectacle 
and not an exciting one. 

On the other hand it should be said that the lack 

78 



''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

of dignity is not wholly on the part of visitors, for 
the Justices themselves, in their prominent location 
are very comfortably settled in their chairs and too 
frequently seem very near sleep. 

The Justices, following the English custom, are 
all solemnly robed in black, and on the davs when 
they are to sit they enter in single file to the ancient 
cry of the court-officer. 

The Supreme Court makes so positive a rule as to 
the impossibility of reversing any of its decisions, 
leaving us a good modern impression of the Medes 
and Persians, that it is fascinating to remember that 
Ben Butler, who was never afraid of anybody, once 
managed to secure a revocation. As he began his 
claim one of the Justices reminded him thatlie was 
violating court ethics. Whereupon Butler replied: 
''If Your Honors will read my brief, I am certain 
you will be inclined to thank me. ' ' Whereupon they 
read and reversed. 

There is here an excellent portrait by Gilbert 
Stuart of the first Chief Justice of the line, John 
Jay, representing him not in the plain black silk 
robes which became customary, but in a black satin 
robe with scarlet facings; and there is a portrait 
of Marshall by Rembrandt Peale. 

In this room, when it was the Senate Chamber, 
Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, the fiery John 
Adams having refused to accompany him. Here 
too war was declared with Great Britain in the vear 
1812. ^ 

Numerous of the most interesting of Supreme 

79 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Court cases were argued and decided before the 
court moved into this rooro,, one of the most interest- 
ing cases being that of Dartmouth College, because 
of the extravagant-seeming description of the effect 
of Webster's oration not only on the audience but 
on the court. Justice Story, didactic writer and 
talker that he was, wrote: *'We listened for the first 
hour with perfect astonishment, the second hour 
with perfect delight, and for the third with perfect 
conviction." A letter from one of the audience to 
Eufus Choate says that Webster's lips quivered and 
that his eyes filled with tears. And Chief Justice 
Marshall, who presided, is described as bending for- 
ward, eager to catch every word, his eyes also suf- 
fused with tears. 

Naturally, Webster won much more distinction as 
a senator than as a lawyer for his abilities were 
marvelously oratorical. Among his few greatest 
speeches was his reply to Hayne, the Southerner 
having made an extraordinarily able attack on the 
North and especially on New England. 

In the night that intervened between Hayne 's at- 
tack and Webster's reply many a Northerner lay 
sleepless, depressed and anxious and fearing that 
Hayne would prove the superior. But a friend who 
called at Webster's house, for his daughter, who was 
visiting Webster's daughter that evening, was sur- 
prised to find the great New Englander not only 
cheerful but playful ; not in his library worrying and 
working at his speech but out in the sitting 

80 



''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

room with one of the girls on each knee. 

His friend was well ahead of time at the Senate 
Chamber next morning, anxious to see Webster 
enter, and he was relieved to see him come in im- 
maculately dressed and very calm. Many members 
of the House of Representatives joined the throng 
of listeners. Every particle of space was occupied. 
Lobbies and staircases were packed. There was 
general anxiety as to Webster's ability to make 
suitable reply. 

"It is time that the people should know what the 
Constitution is," said an anxious Senator to him 
as he entered. 

''They shall learn this day what I understand it 
to be," replied Webster, and with that he went to 
his place, and in his speech he so absolutely de- 
molished Hayne that even the most ardent 
Southerner admitted it. A -painting of the scene 
holds the place of honor in old Faneuil Hall. 

When he visited England Webster was greatly 
interested in the House of Lords, and especially 
noticed the highly important Lyndhurst, who, as 
Webster tells, spoke with scarcely a movement ex- 
cept now and then to move his right hand to his 
left breast. Necessarily a judge of oratory, Web- 
ster also observed that Lyndhurst was conversa- 
tional, argumentative, logical without any attempt 
at brilliancy. 

The extraordinary Lord Broughham, who was be- 
side Webster, remarked, that the Peers considered 

81 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Lyndhurst the ablest debater in the House of Lords. 

''Naturally, I am glad to hear that," responded 
Webster, "Lord Lyndhurst being the son of the 
American painter Copley and Boston born!" 

The French Minister to the United States one day 
asked Webster, when Secretary of State, whether 
America would recognize the new French govern- 
ment under Louis Napoleon. The answer is worth 
noting, especially by those who believe that the es- 
tablishment of a government means its permanent 
endurance. "Why not?" said Webster. "The 
United States recognized the Bourbons, the Republic, 
the Directory, the Council of Five Hundred, the 
First Consul, the Emperor, Louis the Eighteenth, 
Charles the Tenth and Louis Philippe, so why not 
Louis Napoleon!" 

Among all our Senators of the United States 
Webster stands pre-eminent. 

The Senate Chamber is now in the northern wing 
of the Capitol, and has no windows looking to the 
outside, and is lighted by skylights from above. It 
is not a distinguished looking room. It is something 
over one hundred feet in length, and not far from 
being as wide as it is long. 

The galleries extend all around the four sides of 
the chamber and, although designed to accommodate 
visitors, from every part of the country and at times 
in very large numbers, the galleries, which offer the 
only space for visitors, are so poorly planned that 
they seat only one thousand persons ; and the space 
for these one thousand is largely and closely re- 

82 



** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

stricted to families of the members, to diplomatic 
representatives and to the press, leaving very little 
opportunity for the public to attend the sessions. 

The Vice-President of the United States is, under 
the Constitution, the presiding officer of the Senate, 
but in reality he for a great deal of the time calls 
some Senator to the chair. 

The seats of the members are arranged in semi- 
circular order, and each member has his own indi- 
vidual seat and desk. So far as possible the Re- 
publicans are seated at the left of the presiding 
officer, and the Democrats are on the right, but nec- 
essarily this arrangement must at times be modified, 
when one partj^ or the other has a considerable 
majority of the membership. Each member keeps 
his seat during only a single Congress and all draw 
lots at the beginning of the next for a choice. As 
an aid to the public, plans of the seats are printed 
and handed to such visitors as care for this marked 
convenience. 

The most unimportant men in American public 
life are considered to be our Vice-Presidents of the 
United States, but at least they are given in turn the 
honor of a bust in the Senate Chamber and already 
there are a large number of busts, each set in its 
individual niche. One, that of Vice-President Wil- 
son, is not in the Senate Chamber, but in the Vice- 
President's room where he suddenly died. 

The bust of Vice-President King is here, remind- 
ful of the fact that ill health took him to Cuba, during 
his campaign, and that a special act of Congress 

83 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

authorized him to take the oath of office there. Re- 
turning, he died on the very day after his arrival 
in his own country. 

Unavoidably there comes the old time line about 
"most potent, grave and reverend seignors," but 
somehow the Senate of nowadays does not impress so 
potently as America would like it to ; but the great- 
est men come after all in cycles of importance. 
Never was a more important Senatorial period than 
when there were at one time such remarkable mem- 
bers as Webster, Clay and Calhoun, and we may 
fairly hope that the time will again come when such 
men will appear. 

It comes so natural to think of the Senators as 
potent that it is interesting to mention, that in one 
respect, they were not only potent in the past, but 
have continued to be so even in recent years: and 
that has been in marrying their daughters to army 
men who after marriage rose to the greatest promi- 
nence. Fremont won high place and fame in the 
army, after he married the daughter of the powerful 
Senator Benton. It is pleasant to remember that 
Fremont as a young officer courted Jessie Benton 
in the open park in front of where now stands the 
Pension Building. William Tecumseh Sherman won 
his first important advancement through having 
married the daughter of the powerful Ewing. John 
J. Pershing secured his early and astonishing ad- 
vance through being the son-in-law of Senator 
Warren. Pershing's early advance was given him 
by Roosevelt, who found some rule in the way of 

84 



''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

giving the fairly moderate advance that was intended 
and thereupon, rather than be balked or have the 
Senator's wishes balked, made what is believed to 
have been by far the greatest advance in rank for 
Pershing, ever made in our army. All America 
realizes how fortunate for the country it was that 
Pershing was given such early promotion, for with- 
out that he would not have reached the place of 
command of the American army of millions in the 
great war. ^ 

Oftentimes the Senate, in session, does not look as 
imposing as it might do. There are often only a 
few members* present, but the explanation of this 
lies largely in the fact that a great part of sena- 
torial work is done by committees, with a general 
steering committee in control, behind the scenes. 
But there are times when almost every member is 
present : when some bill of special importance draws 
out discussion of intensity, with speech foUoAving 
speech in sequent earnestness. AVhen there is heard 
a jingling bell which calls in such members as may 
still be in some committee room, it may be under- 
stood that an important vote is on the point of being 
taken. 

A general falling off in impressiveness is perhaps, 
absurd though it at first seems, owing to the vanish- 
ing of formal long-tailed coats and to the coming in 
of short sack coats. After all a great deal of 
dignity accompanied the old time dressing. 

Nowadays there is much of standing carelessly 
and listlessly about. The pages of the Senate, who 

85 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

are very young for their work, are called by a hand- 
clap and go on a run, not a walk, to the summoning 
Senator and this adds materially to the stir and con- 
fusion of the room. Vice-President Marshall made 
use of this rush and hurry as a comparison when, in 
his farewell speech to the Senate in 1921, he told 
them that too many of the Senators themselves had 
been ''running with Congressional cracked ice" at 
the call of President Wilson. 

It is a great shock to the visitor to the Senate 
Chamber, be he foreign or native, to observe that 
tobacco is still chewed with the inevitable disagree- 
able result. This is not confined to Southern mem- 
bers nor limited to either party. Out of their own 
mouths they are condemned. 

This has been so stressed as a national vice by 
English travelers, and it is so seldom seen among 
respectable men outside of the Capitol, that it is 
generally taken to be a vice of American origin; 
which makes it interesting to remember that the 
charming Rosalind, pictured in the Forest of Arden, 
must have had this in mind as a habit of the time 
and place for she says: ''Very good orators, when 
they are out, they will spit." Which is remindful 
of Mark Twain's pleasantry, of the Prince who went 
out with the falcon on his finger, ''hawking and spit- 
ting." 

Our "seigniors" by no means fill Shakespeare's 
description of "grave," for most of them are not 
serious of aspect. And there have frequently been 
extremely humorous retorts delivered on the Senate 

86 



** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

floor. The usually sober Senator Burton, whose 
constituents referred to him as *' being as reserved 
as a box-seat at the Opera/' one day surprised his 
colleagues by remarking ''We must have peace, 
even if we have to fight for it." 

Among old-timers, actions were quite a-s impor- 
tant as words, and Clay and Randolph once actually 
fought a duel: although Randolph really did not 
fight but took Clay's fire, and himself fired in the air; 
whereupon the two promptly fell into each other's 
arms. Senator Benton wrote of this that it was a 
"high-toned duel." 

The tirades of Senator Randolph were often in- 
tensely fierce, yet a touch of unintentional humor 
was frequently added by his directing some assistant 
doorkeeper to get him some more porter, in regard 
to which it has been declared that in the course of 
an afternoon speech he would not infrequently drink 
three or four quarts! His antagonist in the duel 
just referred to had a curious habit of sitting in his 
Senatorial seat and sucking striped peppermint 
candy. 

The picturesque Sam Houston used frequently to 
sit in a waistcoat of hairy panther skin and often he 
was giving all of his time in the Senate chamber to 
whittling little pine hearts and other trinkets for 
his women friends. There was more to Sam Hous- 
ton than panther-skin clothes. As a young man, 
Governor of Tennessee, he solved a situation in his 
own way. On his wedding night his bride wept and 
told him she loved another but would try to make 

87 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

him a good wife. '*Miss,'^ said the Governor, **no 
white woman is my slave. Good-night." He re- 
signed the governorship and went to live with the 
Cherokees — but emerged later in life to high public 
office, another wife, the name of a city in Texas and 
of a street in New York, and became a picturesque 
feature of Washington for years. 

Henry Clay at another time fought a duel with 
Humphrey Marshall of Kentucky ; they fought over 
the line in Indiana, and at least a thousand men ac- 
companied them and were spectators. Clay was 
wounded in the thigh and played cards in bed until 
he was well. 

Martin Van Buren was not looked upon as a hu- 
morist but the public managed to find a great deal 
of humor in the fact that when his household goods 
were sold, on his leaving the Senate, it was found 
that the carpet of his library was worn bare where 
he had been in the habit of rehearsing his speeches 
and posturing before a mirror. 

Senator Evarts often made witty remarks. His 
"Water flowed like mne," is the most famous, but 
there are many others. At a great dinner at which 
Webster and Brandreth, a pillmaker, were present, 
Evarts spoke of the happiness of the company in 
having with them "the two pillars of the Constitu- 
tion.'^ At a Thanksgiving dinner Evarts arose and 
began a speech by saying: "You have paid atten- 
tion to a turkey stuffed with sage: I hope you "svill 
now pay brief attention to a sage stuffed with tur- 

88 



''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 

key!" A woman friend once asked him how he 
could stand the variety of food and especially the 
different wines in his many dinings out, to which he 
repUed, '*Ah, madame, it is not the different wines; 
it is the indifferent." 

Senator Ingalls of Kansas will long be remem- 
bered for his reply to President Cleveland's ponder- 
ously uttered remark: ''A public office is a public 
trust," when he cleverly snapped off, ''A public of- 
fice is a private snap." After a defeat at the polls 
(these were in the spirited days of sockless Jerry 
Simpson!) Ingalls referred to himself as a ''states- 
man out of a job, ' ' but laconically admitted that even 
so he had many responsibilities and added that 
about the only people who could escape their respon- 
sibilities were those who travel with "a bandana 
trunk with a pin lock." 

Kansas was often the object of jeers in the Senate 
but no Senator had the temerity to try this twice 
while Ingalls was Senator. One day a Pennsyl- 
vania Senator spoke disparagingly of Kansas, es- 
pecially as compared with a State like Pennsylvania, 
whereupon Ingalls retorted : 

"Mr. President: Pennsylvania has produced only 
two great men — Benjamin Franklin of Massachu- 
setts and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland." At an- 
other time it was a Delaware Senator who risked a 
criticism of Kansas, whereupon Ingalls instantly 
arose and said : "Mr. President: The gentleman who 
has just spoken represents a State which has two 

89 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

counties when the tide is up — and only three when 
it is down." 

The best-known retort of the Senate was made by 
Ben Wade of Ohio. When a Southern member sen- 
timentally declared that a certain law would impose 
a great hardship on Southerners who wished to set- 
tle in Kansas for it would make it impossible for 
them to take with them their dear old mammies who 
had cared for them- from childhood, Wade inter- 
posed sternly : ''We do not object to the gentlemen 
taking their old mammies into Kansas. What we 
object to is their selling them when they get there!" 

In spite of openness to much criticism the Senate 
on the whole is a great and powerful body; the old 
phrase ''the over-shadowing Senate" remains. 

A reminiscence comes of the days before the pres- 
ent Senate Chamber was used. Webster was par- 
ticularly anxious that his long-time friendly rival 
and opponent Calhoun should hear him deliver what 
came to be known as his "Seventh of March" 
speech. He knew that Calhoun was very ill at what 
is known as the Old Capitol, at that time a boarding 
house which had been used as a meeting place by 
Congress after the burning of the actual Capitol by 
the British. 

In all his superbness of physical bearing, Webster 
entered Calhoun's room and found him lying frail 
and almost helpless. Calhoun could only express 
his regret that he would never again attend a Sena- 
torial meeting. 

Immensely saddened, Webster went thoughtfully 

90 



** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 



to the Senate, and a little later arose, and before 
beginning his actual speech pathetically expressed 
his profound regret that his dear friend Calhoun, 
the especial champion of the slave-holding view- 
point, was too ill to be there. 

As Webster was sa3'ing this a tall white-haired 
black-stocked, black-suited, black-cloaked man feebly 
entered the meeting room and sank into a seat. As 
Webster continued his feeling remarks regarding 
Calhoun, the Southerner feebly spoke, but the Mas- 
sachusetts man did not at first hear him. Webster 
continued, and then, in a pause, there came again the 
feeble sound; and the Senate sank into intense si- 
lence except for the thin voice of Calhoun who said : 
"The gentleman from South Carolina is present." 

He was dead before the month was over, but he 
heard his rival's "Seventh of March" speech. 












91 



CHAPTER VII 




EEPKESENTATIVES AND MISBEPKESENTiATIVES 

T any point on entering the Cap- 
itol one gets the impression, that 
the building in one place or an- 
other contains pictures of 
every event in American 
history and portraits or 
sculptures of every Amer- 
ican of prominence and a 
great many who are not 
thought of as having ever 

been prominent. When in 

.E^ the House of Representa- 
tives end of the building, one finds a Gilbert Stuart 
wasted on so forgotten a man as Gunning Bedford, 
one feels that the limit is there positively reached. 
At the same time it must never be overlooked that 
on the whole the portraits and paintings are invalu- 
able as a pictorial and realistic record of the coun- 
try; and if one must needs have a certain propor- 
tion of such forgotten men as Gunning Bedford, it 
is by all means excellent to have them by a Gilbert 
Stuart. 

One of the most interesting although not among 
the very best paintings in the Capitol is that of the 

92 



REPRESENTATIVES 

Signing of the Proclamation of Emancipation, be- 
cause it gives war-time portraits not only of Presi- 
dent Lincoln but of Stanton, Chase, Seward, and the 
other members of his Cabinet. A portrait of Char- 
les Carroll of Carrollton, who will always be known 
with this full designation because he thus signed the 
Declaration, remarking as he did so, that as there 
were so many Carrolls, King George could now tell 
precisely which one he was, is one of the portraits 
of the Capitol, and it is especially worth while, be- 
cause it so happened that this man of picturesque 
appellation was the last survivor of the Signers. 

One of the most popular of Capitol paintings is 
the large one which won the title of *' Westward 
Ho!" representing as it does all the figures of an 
early far-West emigrant party, with every detail 
shown. 

The meeting room of the House of Representa- 
tives, and the various other rooms given over to the 
use of that body, are in the opposite end of the Cap- 
itol from the rooms of the Senate, and the Hall of 
Representatives, as it is usually termed, is about 
twenty five feet longer than the Chamber of the Sen- 
ate, although one would naturally expect it to be 
much larger on account of the much greater number 
of members. And although the members are so 
many, the accommodation for visitors is barely more 
than is allowed by the Senate, for only twelve hun- 
dred in all can be crowded in even at the most im- 
portant sessions. One may fairly wonder if this 
was not intended by the planners, to make it impos- 

93 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

sible for any large number of the possibly disaf- 
fected to gather about either of the Houses in ses- 
sion. The same reason may have had much to do 
with the keeping of the chambers of both Houses in 
a state of windowless isolation, through having the 
lighting come from overhead skylights. 

It used to be, as late as 1830, that it was the cus- 
tom of the members of Congress to follow the old 
and extremely odd English Parliamentary custom 
of wearing their hats during the sessions. 

There are no longer desks in the House, and the 
members are not given each his own individual seat, 
in this diifering markedly from the Senate, but the 
Representatives shift about at their own will, indi- 
vidual seating not now being feasible with so large 
a membership. 

The two important figures of authority are the 
Speaker of the House, who is a very important figure 
indeed: and the sergeant-at-arms who on occasion 
carries the Mace of the House. The Mace is of au- 
thority by representing the entire power of the 
House. When not in use it remains on its marble 
pedestal and there signifies that the House is in 
session. It is a bundle of ebony rods fastened with 
transverse bands of silver, having thus a marked 
Roman air. When the sergeant-at-arms is making 
his stately progress to carry out some order of the 
Speaker, as for example the quieting of a riot or a 
fight among the members, he holds the Mace aloft in 
his hands, advancing thus, in a sort of stately pro- 
gress. 

94 



REPRESENTATIVES 

Even at the present time there are now and then 
fights or near-fights and a great deal of abusive 
language; as to the last point, however, the members 
might point to the vividly abusive authority of the 
great Roosevelt, who although never a member of 
the House, loved on occasion to give himself full 
verbal freedom: as, for example, when attacking 
Parker, his rival for the Presidency, he declared: 
"The statements made by Mr. Parker are unquali- 
fiedly and atrociously false!" 

As the Mace represents an old-time custom, for it 
has been used in precisely its present way since the 
very first Congress, so also is an old-time custom 
represented by the quaintness of turning back the 
hands of the clock to lengthen by this obvious and 
recognized fiction the close of a final session of Con- 
gress. Unfortunately, however, this is not alto- 
gether a .matter of quaint and expected custom, 
but is made an opportunity at times by the unscru- 
pulous to rush through without question in the 
last few minutes some more or less nefarious 
bills. 

The Hall of Representatives is not impressive in 
design, although I remember recently reading that 
it is one of the most marvelous meeting chambers of 
any legislative body in the world! Such matters 
must necessarily always remain questions of indi- 
vidual taste. 

A very great amount of space is given by the 
House to purposes of individual comfort, as for res- 
taurants and many kinds of meeting and resting 

95 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

rooms ; and the vast and beautiful new office build- 
ings offer still greater space. 

The Congressmen of both Houses, Senators and 
Representatives, alike lose their names when they 
enter the meeting chambers. They are always re- 
ferred to as " the gentleman from Ohio, " ' ' the gen- 
tleman from California,'^ and so on. The excep- 
tions come when there are two men of the same sur- 
name from the same State, in which case they must 
needs be differentiated, or when the very rare occa- 
sions come when a member is called to the bar to be 
publicly censured by the presiding officer. 

An amusing twist was given to this general cus- 
tom by a Vice-President of some years ago who, 
whenever he recognized one of the two Senators 
from Arkansas, knowing that one of the two pro- 
nounced the name of the State with the final ''s" 
sounded, and the other with the last syllable pro- 
nounced as if it ended with *'w," always recognized 
one of the members as ' ' The gentleman from Arkan- 
saw" and the other as *'The gentleman from Arkan- 
sas." 

In a sense the members of Congress constitute an 
intellectual melting pot quite as importantly as do 
the people of the great cities; for men gather to- 
gether not only from distant parts of the country, 
but from parts where there are widely different 
problems as to the needs and proper treatment of 
different classes of people. Here in Washington, by 
mingling with the Southern members, the members 
from the North may come to an understanding of the 

96 



REPRESENTATIVES 

negro problems, and the Southerners for their part 
may come to an understanding of the problems 
connected with the enormous number of un-American 
foreigners in the North. 

Even more than -with the Senate, and this natur- 
ally is owing to the much larger number of members, 
there is almost always some one ready for a quip or 
jest. One day, annoyed by what he deemed foolish 
talk of two fellow Congressmen, Thomas B. Reed 
remarked: '^They never open their mouths without 
subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." 

One day Congressman Springer, in an effort to be 
particularly impressive and convincing declared: 
*'As for me, I would rather be right than be Presi- 
dent. ' ' At which Reed instantly drawled in his cool 
fashion: ''Well, the gentleman will never be either." 
That Springer's phrase w^as originally used, one 
day, by Henry Clay used to be remembered by old- 
timers, and it was perhaps fortunate even for the 
great Clay, that Reed was not then a member. 

It is naturally diflRcult if not impossible to refer to 
the general type of Representatives, for after all 
you may get an impression from one Congress which 
will be altered by the next, and yet, it does seem a 
fact that the usual Member of Congress is a trifle 
under average height, is a little more broad should- 
ered than the average man, this perhaps being typi- 
cal of being able to push his way, and is inclined to 
have a somewhat rounder head and a shorter neck 
than men of other classes. It seems to be that there 
are more successful dark-haired politicians than 

97 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

those of other hirsute coloring. John Quincy 
Adams, one of the most striking examples of lengthy 
continuity of office, could scarcely be referred to as 
an example of either class, his head being bare 
through his hair being so scant and sacrosanct. It 
was a very sensitive point with the irascible Adams, 
and when a constituent one day called at his Wash- 
ington home and said that his wife, when a little 
girl, used to call at the Adams home and often curled 
John Quincy 's hair, Adams forgot any caution as to 
offending a constituent and snarled: ''I suppose she 
combs yours now." 

Franklin Pierce, when he was a Congressman a 
dozen years before he was made President, one 
evening gave a striking illustration of the kind of 
helpfulness that makes friends. For being out with 
a convivial companion, this companion fell into one 
of the old-time open sewers. Pierce tried in vain to 
pull him out. Then he said : * 'I can't get you out, so 
I'll come in myself!" On which, fully dressed as 
he was, he leaped in. 

The House of Eepresentatives has been quite a 
goal for odd or even freakish members. One South- 
erner was so large and heavy that a special chair 
had to be made for him. One of the unusual old- 
time members of Congress, or to be precise, a dele- 
gate from the Territory of Michigan, was a Roman 
Catholic Priest, named Gabriel Richard, who re- 
ceived orders in Paris and went as a missionary 
into the Northwest Territory. And this is remind- 
ful of another ecclesiastic, John Withcrspoon, pres- 

98 



REPRESENTATIVES 

ident of Princeton, whose statue stands at the corner 
of Connecticut Avenue and Eighteenth Street, who 
was the only clergj-man who signed the Declaration 
of Independence. One of the city's most interesting 
characters, Eleazer AVilliams, was not a Congress- 
man, but a lobbyist sent by Indians to sway Con- 
gressional action in regard to them. He has gener- 
ally been supposed to be a half-breed Seneca — but 
he aroused immense interest by formally claiming 
to be the lost dauphin of France, brought up in the 
American backwoods. 

It was Congressman Jim Campbell who, when 
confronted by President Cleveland with Constitu- 
tional reasons why a bill in which Campbell was in- 
terested could not be signed, replied coaxingly : "Oh, 
just sign it! What's the Constitution between 
friends!" Which immensely amused the usually 
placid Cleveland, but, naturallly, did not secure his 
signature. 

As with the Senate, so with the House, it is often 
the case that only a small proportion of members 
are present, and as also with the Senate, so with the 
House, it is often the case that there is a general 
effect of inattention, as if the members are heedless 
as to the passing or not passing of bills of immensely 
important character. But also as with the Senate, 
the explanation is to quite an extent to be found in 
the fact that much of the most important work is 
done in committees. 

The Representatives in general are of not nearly 
so much importance in Washington, either politically 

99 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

or socially, as are the Senators or heads of Depart- 
ments. It is hard to awe the average Washington- 
ian with a Representative unless the Representative 
is of special importance through the possession of 
marked qualities or great wealth. 

Many Congressmen's wives are always to be 
found at the meetings of what are known as ' * Cur- 
rent Events" lecturers, for they develop an immense 
eagerness to keep in touch with the affairs of the 
nation and the world. Many follow the Congres- 
sional debates closely from the galleries, day after 
day. 

A great retort in the House was evoked when a 
New York Congressman of some years ago was on 
the point of being expelled by his fellow members 
for dishonesty regarding an important bill. He 
made a lengthy defense, ending with an appeal 
against a harsh decision, and began to quote pathe- 
tically, *' 'Tis hard to part, when friends are dear," 
at which a voice demanded coldly: "Will the gen- 
tlqman please name the price?" This is still looked 
upon as one of the star retorts of the House, and 
another was made in regard to Representative Hol- 
man, who for many years bore the title of the 
"Watch-dog of the Treasury," on account of his 
custo-m of objecting to every money bill that came 
up. One day, however, a bill was introduced for the 
expenditure of a large sum in Holman's own dis- 
trict. A fellow member introduced it and a dead 
silence fell as the House listened for the expected 
Holman objection. But it did not come. The sil- 

100 



REPRESENTATIVES 

ence continued, and then from the far side of the 

house there came the taunting- 

" 'Tis sweet to hear the watch dog's honest bark 
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near 
home.'* 




\^-^hr^, 




101 



CHAPTER VIII 



SOME CHABACTERISTICS 



REGIMENT of bronze cav- 
alry could be formed, so 
the impression comes, 
from the host of bronze 
horsemen scattered 
about Washington 
streets. 
Washington is a wonder- 
fully be-statued city; it has 
more statues in its streets in 
proportion to its size, than 
has any other city, and 
the statues are almost 
all equestrian and almost 
all to commemorate 
heroes of war. 

Look in any direction, up any street or avenue, 
and the eye is struck by a row of statued men. For 
example, follow along Vermont Avenue, and you 
find only a block apart, Logan, and Thomas and Mc- 
Pherson and Jackson. Very prominent, beyond the 
south front of the White House, is the tall and ra- 
ther recent equestrian Sherman. On Mt. Pleasant, 
in particular prominence, is a large and quite new 
McClellan. In fact the horsemen are everywhere. 

102 




«»-*««C^^.# 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

The placing of statued generals about the city be- 
gan many years ago, and among the first were the 
Washington which fascinated Bret Harte and the 
careering Andrew Jackson. Grant of course is one 
of the many, and the Grant Memorial displays horse- 
men galore in highly excited groups. There are 
now far more bronze horses than live ones to be 
seen on the streets of the Capitol. 

Washington has markedly the air of a military 
city. During the Great War it did not look so mili- 
tary-like as did, say, either New York or Philadel- 
phia, although it might naturally have been expected 
to look very military-like indeed at that time. 
There were generally no great number of officers or 
soldiers to be seen on the streets, and even the White 
House and its grounds, carefully though they were 
in reality guarded, gave little outward evidence of 
watchfulness except for here and there an isolated 
soldier or policeman. But since the war, Wash- 
ington has become the special goal of army men and 
it now has more of a military aspect than have the 
other cities. 

It seems curious but is perhaps quite natural, that 
thus far, although the veterans of the late war are 
highly honored, the period has not yet arrived in 
which they are to be mistily haloed, a period which a 
great many years ago was reached in regard to the 
men of the Ci\nl War. And this is remindful of 
Mrs. Burton Harrison's amusement, when a young 
girl, who had been reading with aiddity novels of the 
Civil War, asked her in all seriousness if it were 

103 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

really true that every man of that period was hand- 
some, clever and a palladin of bravery, and every 
woman a radiant belle and beauty. 

Washington is pre-eminently a city of social activ- 
ities. It is not, as would naturally be expected, a 
city of many theatres. A city thronged not only 
with residents with time at their disposal, but with 
visitors from all quarters, would naturally be expec- 
ted to demand an active drama, as an important fea- 
ture, whereas on the contrary it is seldom in the 
winter that a good play comes. One is tempted to 
wonder if the explanation can be the intensity with 
which the people who would under ordinary circum- 
stances be supporters of the theater and demanders 
of good plays are wrapped up in matters of social 
life. Residents and visitors, spealdng broadly, fol- 
low eagerly in the round of dinners, receptions, 
luncheons and teas. 

It is the more remarkable that it is not a great 
amusement city, for it is a city of the shortest pos- 
sible working hours. The great department build- 
ings with their thousands and thousands of em- 
ployees, turn them all into the streets at extremely 
early hours, and a most curious corollary is that 
museums and galleries also close by the middle of 
the afternoon! With practically all of the places 
of instruction or sightseeing closing early in the 
day, there are still few theaters other than for mov- 
ing pictures. 

It may be said, however, that dancing is a marked 
diversion of a great part of the population, and this 

104 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

of course partially explains the absence of great 
theatrical demand. The present occupants of the 
White House, the Hardings, both have a pleasant 
liking for dancing, not at all a usual White House 
feature, at least in recent years. 

Washington has gradually become a Mecca for 
bridal couples. In this respect it is believed to out- 
rival even Niagara Falls. Someone with a bent for 
figures has estimated that the average is one hun- 
dred thousand a year: a rather incredible seeming 
number, but the actual figure must be high. 

It was not in relation to a marriage but a funeral 
that Mrs. Jefferson Davis once came in touch with 
what w^as, to her, an entirely new feature. The 
funeral carriage called for her, and as it started off 
she noticed on either side, four negroes, walking in 
solemn glory, in black clothes and white cotton 
gloves. Instantly she demanded of the negro coach- 
man an explanation, and she was told: "This, ma- 
dame, is the way we always does at funerals and 
sich like." Telling the story herself she used to say 
that she was almost sorry to order the eight negroes 
to vanish, so proud had they been and then so crest- 
fallen. 

Among American cities Washington seems to be 
the black man's paradise. They are mostly happy 
and contented. They seem to be good citizens al- 
though some live in little narrow alleys, of which 
there are not many in the city; others live in excel- 
lent houses on excellent streets, they having of re- 
cent years acquired a good many districts of homes 

105 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

which used to be prized by the whites. Many ne- 
groes owned bits of land in the most exclusive North 
West section and by selling became prosperous. Al- 
though there are quite a number of shops for ne- 
groes, negroes are unobtrusively welcomed in all 
the large stores as well. 

There are negroes who are small shop-keepers, 
prosperous working men, office-holders, and small 
landlords. A great many past middle age, have the 
garb and facial expression that in other cities would 
mark them as negro preachers instead of, as here, 
negroes of settled prosperity. Even where negro 
homes are in rows of little houses in every shade of 
green and red and bronze and yellow, there is not 
an impression of poverty. 

It is not politics that has dictated a good policy to- 
ward them, because nobody in the District of Colum- 
bia votes, either white or black. The birthrate of 
the blacks is a little greater than that of the whites, 
and the death rate is quite considerably greater, 
so that unless constantly reinforced from the South 
as they are, the negroes here would die out. 

It is one of the most curious features of American 
history that less than five years before the Civil 
War it was solemnly declared in this city that the 
black race could be considered only as property. 
Chief Justice Taney, backed by a strong majority 
of the Supreme Court and by the general approval 
of the people and the majority of the churches, es- 
sentially declared that the negro had no right which 
the white man was bound to respect. 

106 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

Even the opponents of slavery were so aghast that 
they could scarcely think it possible that the con- 
dition would ever change. It added to the striking 
features of the ease that Taney, violently outspoken 
slavery man as he was, within a few years swore 
into office as President the man who was to over- 
throw slavery, Abraham LinclonI Thus did fate 
reverse the decision. 

What amounts to a new city has within the past 
few years been developing on the heights, which in 
a general way are known as Mt. Pleasant, on the 
long hill beyond the twisty old lane, now a street, 
long the boundary of the city and known as Florida 
Avenue. These heights command far-extending 
views over the city and the Potomac; and many a 
hotel and apartment house has phalanxes of win- 
dows arranged to command these city-sweeping 
vistas. 

There are costly homes here, and here too apart- 
ment houses of great size and expensiveness have 
firmly entrenched themselves. There are many 
apartment houses also in the general northwest sec- 
tion, before the heights are mounted, and they have 
the pleasant aspect which goes well with tliis city of 
charm. 

The sidewalks and pavements are used freely by 
children of good class, for roller skating, and little 
wagon coasting: and the slopes of Mt. Pleasant are 
naturally not overlooked. One will sometimes be met 
on a slope by five or six little wagons, one immedi- 

107 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

ately following the other, loaded with happy chil- 
dren. 

By the movement of the motor cars which travel 
the Mt. Pleasant hills one may almost tell the time 
of day, for they come down in pleasantly noisy 
flocks between nine and ten in the morning, go back, 
many of them, a little more noisily for the dinner 
hour, and later, about one o'clock at night, attack 
the hill very noisily indeed, making free runs at the 
grade, starting from as far back as Dupont Circle. 

An interesting feature of many of the streets of 
the city is that they are completely arcaded by the 
trees which are planted at their sides, and cared for 
by the city authorities. Beautiful examples of this 
may be seen in New Hampshire Avenue. Shade is 
so valued that the trees are often too low-trimmed 
for umbrella use on rainy days. 

Washington is essentially a winter city, and the 
spaces about the house-fronts, and some unusually 
beautiful gardens, are planted with all manner of 
evergreens, laurels, magnolias, barberries, box 
bushes and borders, thus achieving an effect that 
especially delights the eye of the Northern garden 
lover who finds at home his box bushes and borders 
a source of despair. The houses too are draped 
with thick-growing English ivy. Many of them have 
balconies over the front doors, as if the architect 
had in mind that public favorites might live in the 
houses and be called upon for speeches to crowds 
in the streets. 

At two spots in the city, one south of the White 

108 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

House in the Executive grounds, and the other at 
Dupont Circle, are two great circular plantings of 
elni trees which have now become mature old trees 
and which show markedly from lofty points or in 
airplane pictures. 

Washington is so attractive a city that although 
one may notice points of difference from other cities 
it is seldom that one thinks of it as anything but a 
place of charm and even beauty. 

A characteristic that one early notices is the ab- 
sence of what is expected as a matter of course in 
every other American city — the wholesale district! 
— something which simply does not here exist. You 
next notice that there is also an absence of any manu- 
facturing district. Then comes the realization that 
you see very few heavy trucks filled with mer- 
chandise, such as are so familiarly to be seen else- 
where. 

There is a surprising lesisureliness in the general 
business and shopping of the city, whether in the 
few large department stores or in the shops. A 
mutual leisureliness of customer and clerk is either 
annoying or amusing if you are waiting to do some 
purchasing yourself. 

Business in general is a pleasant feature of tliis 
pleasant city, and there is an almost naive readiness 
to give credit to new customers: indeed, it is not 
infrequently offered without being asked for: and 
this is a city peculiarly of transients ! 

I noticed the other day a man who distinctly repre- 
sented a survival of the long ago past. He was a 

109 



r-^ 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 



scissors grinder, and he looked precisely as that kind 
of craftsman still looks in all parts of the country. 
Here was the short shabby man of our youthful days, 
with a gray-black lathe-frame on his back, and so 
bending under the load as to let his pendulum arm 
agitate the tongue of the bell, and always with the 
same sharp sound. 

The horse-shoer has almost vanished ; the modern 
shoemaker no longer sits on his queer low leather 
bench. How long will the scissors-grinder last? 

A fascinating-seeming kind of advertisement, not 
in the least exceptional, but very common indeed, 
and often showing in rows in the advertising col- 
umns, is that of '* furniture of all kinds'^ — as the 
general phrase is, for houses or apartments of all 
sizes : 

"Wanted— to purchase immediately, outfit for a 
seven-room apartment. Phone so and 
so.'^ 

** Wanted — furniture of all kinds for a fourteen- 
room house." 

"Wanted — furniture of all kinds for an eleven- 
room house." 

And such advertisements go on, always specify- 
ing with amusing particularity the precise number 
of rooms to be so equipped. The explanation comes, 
from this being so largely a city of people who come 
for a few years at a time. 

President Van Buren describes Washington as 
"the most gossiping place in the world." The city 
has been gossiping ever since. If a man or a woman 

110 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

goes out to a social function he is expected to take 
some gossip with him, and to bring back, if he is 
clever, more than he takes. In the present days of 
prohibition, gossip is taking the line of telling the 
quantity and quality of wine served at great dinners ; 
or some one may tell quietly of a retiring President 
ordering army trucks to move his private supply. 
Gossip revels over ^vdde fields. 

Washington is distinctively an American city. 
This cannot be too strongly expressed. Good-look- 
ing Americans and delightful Americans represent 
almost the complete population ; and if some caviler 
should say something about the blacks, they too are 
Americans of many generations. On account of this 
being the center of diplomatic life there is at the 
same time both in street scenes and at all gatherings, 
a highly disting-uished sprinkling of foreigners, at- 
tached to the embassies. 

American as the city is, and excellent as its 
schools seem to be, one's first impression is strongly 
of a shortage of school buildings. The public schools 
are so quietly placed, that you are tempted to think 
that it is easier to find orphan asylums or private 
schools. And then your fears are put to flight by 
coming upon the Central High School — a huge build- 
ing, an absolutely enormous building, situated on a 
terrace overhanging Florida Avenue. 

Boarding-houses have always been a feature of 
"Washington life and it is a poor one that cannot 
boast a major, a dear general's widow, a member of 
General Wood's staff, a vice-consul from Birming- 

111 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

ham, an educated Chinese, in addition to the elderly 
ladies and department clerks who frequent such 
homes. 

There are quiet and highly respected ''places" 
so called, such as Hillyer and Jefferson and Deca- 
tur; pleasant localities — little eddies off great 
thoroughfares where it has always been a sort of 
small social asset to live. Here the relicts and the 
maiden daughters of governors. Presidents, gen- 
erals, admirals, senators, live in a well-bred, quiet 
round of teas, small dinners and great maintenance 
of old pride and tradition — each in the heavy shade 
of family trees. And from year to year there are 
more apartment houses, where thousands are pi- 
geoned-holed in "three rooms and a bath," with 
proper hall service and elaborate motor entrance. 

All through the best residence sections of Wash- 
ington there exists a very characteristic feature of 
the capital's streets. This is the horseshoe-shaped 
drive which crosses the sidewalks twice, so that 
motors may approach and leave the actual doorstep 
of the house. These drives give a motor-terror to 
sidewalk-abiding nursemaids, children, home-going 
citizens and hurrying postmen, and are very de- 
structive to pet dogs. On these horseshoe curves, 
a caller 's motor can wait between sidewalk and door- 
step, and on reception days the motors are parked 
up and down the street; and on the doorman's signal 
or upon the appearance of the owner at the door, the 
motors dart from the curb, whirl into the horseshoe 

112 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

curve and are off over the sidewalk again, and out 
and into the street. 

One reason why there are not so many old-time 
houses as might naturally be expected in Washing- 
ton is because the immense changes of level carried 
out under the direction of Colonel Shepherd did away 
with most of the old houses or else left them so 
skied or submerged in clay banks, that the owners 
promptly tore them down. 

A feature of Washington residences is the great 
size of many of them. These are the homes of ex- 
tremely wealthy men retired from politics or bus- 
iness, or their widows. More and more the city at- 
tracts w^ealthy folk who have not satisfactorily 
established themselves in other places or who have 
come here to widen their social horizon or improve 
upon their winter climate. And quite a proportion 
of those who come do so because of the acknowledged 
fascination of the mingled society here. Constantly 
in their motor cars, in the trolleys, or entering or 
leaving some of the public buildings, distinguished 
folk are in evidence, whose faces ought instantly to 
be recognized by all. 

Long ago in the "Gilded Age,'^ it was told that 
the stranger in Washington was able to see renowned 
generals and admirals, who had seemed but colossal 
myths off in some distant State, or there were 
world-famous statesmen passing as a plain matter 
of fact, and the young man of the story * ' had looked 
upon the President himself and lived." 

H3 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Washington is a markedly polite city. Such forms 
as a man's keeping his hat off while speaking with 
a lady on the street are customary, and it is pleas- 
ant to hear the frequent soft-voiced *'sir." And 
politeness extends in a general way through all 
classes. Just a few days ago two dear old ladies 
were getting gently and slowly off a Connecticut 
Avenue car at R Street, and tarried for a moment on 
the platform to say graciously to the conductor, ''It 
has been a cold day for you to-day ' ' — a simple thing 
but one which warmed the heart of the conductor 
and the passengers who heard it. 

Thomas Jefferson, walking out one day with a 
young relative, courteously returned the bow of a 
slave, and when the young man with him said some- 
thing in regard to it, Jefferson replied: "Should you 
expect me to be less polite than that black manT' 

There is no distinctively "Great White Way." 
F Street has splotches of theater, restaurant, and dry 
goods store lights, and Ninth Street has perhaps the 
closest together of lighted windows at night, but even 
there, there is nothing very bright, nor is there any 
great brightness around even the big hotels. Hotel, 
restaurant and theater lights unite to make a pleasant 
degree of brightness near Lafayette Square and the 
Willard Hotel, but by one in the morning there is 
at least semi-darkness, for private lights have been 
turned out and the city itself does not overlight its 
streets — though all its avenues have great ball- 
shaped lights throughout their lengths. 

114 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

A usual night feature is the leaving well-lighted, 
particularly on F Street, of the front windows of 
closed shops, such as candy shops, silversmiths, 
women's hat shops, and so on, so as to offer good 
''window-shopping" though the stores are closed, 
and an odd feature is that as the people drift home 
from moving-picture theaters or restaurants, a 
brisk young man, not in uniform, enters doorway 
after doorway, shakes the door and snaps an obscure 
button, leaving the shop and window in darkness, 
and making rapid progress dowTi the street. 

Neither at night nor in the day time, are quite so 
many policemen to be seen as in other cities — except 
traffic men : they are guarded by roof-set spot lights 
at night, and have mud-guarding shields about them, 
like huge, waist-high cans. 

There is many a charming bit to be noticed by 
chance as one goes about the Washington streets, as 
the Church of the Covenant, which looks out at the 
Witherspoon statue at Connecticut Avenue and 
Eighteenth Streets, with an admirable stone tower of 
Norman design, to be seen with especial effectiveness 
in a vista from between buildings on M Street; at 
your right being the great St. Matthew's church with 
its unfinished fagade and at your left the spot where 
stood what was for a time the most talked of house 
in Washington, the one given by the public to Ad- 
miral Dewey, only to be at once handed over by him 
to his wife. 

One of the common sights of the city, as it has 

115 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

been from the very beginning, is that of parties of 
Indians, men and women, in their native costume, 
waUdng up and down the streets, or going into pub- 
lic buildings, or stores : and it is always a very pic- 
turesque sight, though these wards of the nation al- 
ways seem a little pathetic on the hard pavements. 
The men seem drawn by the Capitol or White House 
and the women by the trinket shops of Pennsylvania 
Avenue. The other day a group of mocassin-shod, 
blanket-wrapped squaws were carefully choosing 
and examining and purchasing fine leather vanity 
bags in the largest shop on F Street. 

And I noticed one day two gypsies passing by, 
one with orange turban, and weird green jacket, the 
other with turban of vivid green, and jacket of 
orange, and both with loop ear-rings and with skirts 
braided with dull red. 

I A pathetic survival of old Washington, and in 
fact of a time that has almost vanished from the 
entire country, is a horse market at the junction of 
Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue on the 

t Mall. In a few years it will be as much a thing of 
the past as the slave markets, which not many years 
ago disappeared. The poor old horses are rough, 
unkempt, decrepit, poorly-fed, and usually attached 
to old and broken-down wagons. The drivers stand 
dejectedly beside them, engaged in the dulling occu- 
pation of tapping the pavement with the butt-ends 
of old whips. 
Although Washington is a city of limited manu- 

116 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS 

facturing it retains various reminders of the handi- 
crafts of the past. Even the horse-shoers are still 
sufficient in number to have a union, and there are 
unions of jewelry workers, school custodians and 
janitors, navy yard riggers, buffers and polishers, 
and the astonishingly entitled "Yeast, Cereal, Bev- 
erage and Soft Drink Workers." 

These is an association of the "Oldest Inhabitants 
of the District of Columbia" and they hold their 
meetings in a quaint little old fire-house facing to- 
ward Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House 
and Georgetown. 

One is not at first impressed that there are so 
many churches as would naturally be expected, but 
one by one they are come upon, and among others 
there are seventy-two little churches of the colored 
Baptists. There is a delightfully named Sunshine 
Temple, under the pastorate of one named Zed H. 
Capp. There are churches of Christadelphians. 
There is a Theomonistic Church. There are a 
couple of Pentecostal Churches of the Nazarene. 

Among the various associations, one thinks first 
of the famous Gridiron Club with its meetings at 
which the greatest men in the land are expected 
to be present and to receive jests with equanim- 
ity. 

There is an Alibi Club headed by a Proctor, as- 
sisted by a Bulldog. There are the Knights of the 
Golden Eagle. There is the fraternal order of the 
Degree of Pocahontas. There are Knights of Malta. 

117 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

There are Maccabees. There is the Social Order of 
the Moose. There is the Improved Order of Heptas- 
ophus. And there are a Rising Sun Lodge, a Bloom 
of Youth Lodge, and a Lodge of the Golden Eeef. 




118 



CHAF'TER IX 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 



HEN Charles 
Sumner took 
Thackeray on a 
drive about Wash- 
ington, the Sum- 
n e r sensibilities 
were intensely 
wrought up in the 
effort to keep the 
distinguished nov- 
elist from seeing 
the statue of An- 
drew Jackson, in 
the center of La- 
fayette Square. As the carriage passed Sumner 
talked with extreme animation, the while obscuring 
Thackeray's vision by poking his head forward! 

On the whole it is considered likely that this Jack- 
son statue has given more genuine pleasure to 
people in general than any other statue in the city. 
Jackson is upon a ramping, caracoling steed. The 
statue is really a marvel of balancing, as the horse 
stands with its front feet high in the air and General 
Jackson's old-time chapeau is held martially aloft. 

119 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

One wonders how it all retains balance, as there is 
no assisting support of any sort. It has a curious 
toy-like quality, from its prancing play-like pose 
and from looking small among the large old trees. 

The statue was made from cannon captured in 
Jackson^s campaigns. If you walk directly toward 
it and a little to the right, you will see an astonishing 
sight. The old hero, who was never scared in his 
life, has from this one point of view the aspect of 
hair on end, eyebrows up, alarmed eyes, and with 
the horse seeming to share his terror. 

Lafayette Square, once an apple orchard given by 
the stubborn old David Burns who loved to oppose 
even Washington, is now a charming parklike space 
of old trees and billowy greenery opposite the north 
front of the White House, and extending from Penn- 
sylvania Avenue to H Street. Its name was given 
it by Washington himself, and it is separated from 
the White House by the width of Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue and the White House grounds. Its landscape 
gardening is so largely evergreen that it is a place 
of beauty in winter as well as in summer. When 
one looks upon it one realizes that here is no ephem- 
eral gardening — it could be left to itself for a genera- 
tion and still be, like the ancient Italian gardens, a 
spot of beauty. This foreign touch is added to by 
the statued foreign friends of the nation here in the 
square. 

In the corner nearest the State, War, and Navy 
Department stands a very military looking Rocham- 
beau, or, to give him his full set of names, Comte de 

120 




THE CHURCH OF THE PRESIDENTS 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

Jean Baptiste Donation de Vimeur. In the comer 
nearest the Treasury Building stands Lafayette, a 
bronze figure in the uniform of a Continental gen- 
eral. Each of the four corners of the square has a 
monumonted foreigner: here are the four principal 
foreign friends who fought for our nation. In one 
of the H Street corners is the statue of the remark- 
able German general, Friedrich Wilhelm August 
Heinrich Ferdinand, Baron von Steuben, who had 
been aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great and be- 
came the drill-master of the Revolutionary armies: 
and a most efficient drill-master he proved himself. 
He stands in bronze in full uniform, cloaked and 
queued, a capable military figure. 

In the fourth corner opposite the new War Risk 
building stands Kosciuszko, whose first name is 
much like his second, being Tadeusz. What excel- 
lent spellers the Poles must needs be ! This statue, 
set amid the lovely greenery of the square, calls to 
mind the peaceful garden at Varese in northern Italy 
in which the heart of the unquiet Kosciuszko lies 
buried. 

L^pon this statue, standing entirely by itself, is one 
of the funniest inscriptions that is anywhere to be 
seen! — the line, "And Freedom shrieked when 
Kosciuszko fell." There was a time when the aver- 
age American was fully familiar with this shrieking 
line, but what an alarming statement it must seem 
to the American citizen of to-day; and to the for- 
eigner, no matter how intelligent, it must be more 
unintelligible still. Even the traveler from Kosci- 

121 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

uszko's own land would be utterly bewildered and, 
carrying the shrieking phrase back to Europe, would 
there spread the news from Pole to Pole. 

A feature of these four statues of foreigners is 
that in this city, so crowded with bronze equestrian 
American officers, horses were not provided for 
these highly placed foreign generals: and on the 
whole, one thinks that an officer looks better on foot. 

At the northern edge of Lafayette Square, looking 
as directly across at the White House as the merid- 
ianal Sixteenth Street permits, is a group of a few 
houses that have been the homes of particularly 
well known Washingtonians. 

At the very corner of Sixteenth Street, and looking 
across at St. John's Church, is a broad fortress-like 
building with a loop-holed and arched entrance and 
a two-towered fagade. Here lived John Hay. He 
began public life as one of the private secretaries of 
Lincoln, and wrote, with another private secretary, 
a life of the great President which is a veritable 
mine of information. But the public have always 
persisted in looking on John Hay's principal claim 
to fame as based on two early short poems. 

"I don't go much on religion, 
I never ain't had no show; 
But I've got a middling tight grip, sir, 
On the handful o' things I know." 

This is from ''Little Breeches," and is the kind of 
thing that the American public will devour with 
infinite gusto; and as to "Jim Bludso" — ^well, 

122 



ABOUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

"He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, 
And went for it thar and then; 
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard, 
On a man that died for men." 

He wrote a sad little poem, ''The Stirrup Cup," 
beginning with its thought of death: 

"My short and happy day is done. 
The long and dreary night comes on; 
And at my door the Pale Horse stands, 
To carry me to unknown lands." 

John Hay won high rank as an ambassador, and 
as Secretar^^ of State, but as high as this fame and 
as high as his "Life of Lincoln" is his fame through 
his early verses. 

A gentle soul, he seems to have been ; no one envy- 
ing him his public advancement nor the wealth which 
came to him through marriage. 

Tucked in next door to John Hay and looking 
squarely out across Lafayette Square lived Henry 
Adams, son of the American Minister to Great 
Britain during the Civil War, grandson of John 
Quincy Adams, and great-grandson of John Adams. 
Henry x\dams "was filled with a full measure of New 
England spirit. He wrote some volumes of history 
of the period of Jefferson and Madison, always as 
if before him was the necessity of defending his 
family forefathers and always with inability to un- 
derstand the men of the South — or himself. 

He wrote his ''Education," widely read, greatly 
talked about, tragically showing that he waited for 

123 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

years and years for public recognition which never 
came. He bitterly criticised those who did not appre- 
ciate him. In the course of his life, he knew at the 
White House a dozen Presidents. He was a great 
traveler and knew the great people of the earth. 
Grant, one of those who did not appoint him to any- 
thing, was archaic according to Adams, and ''should 
have lived in a cave and worn skins." General Lee 
was a man of ''intellectual commonplace." 

A strange, a brooding man, Adams refused his 
wife's request to cut a door through a partition for 
the convenience of spirit visitors. In his biography 
he would not mention his one work, his history. 
Many think that what he wrote of Mont San Michel 
and Chartres points out the Norman heritage that 
has come down even to Americans of to-day. Henry 
Adams is worth knowing and thinking about because 
he so markedly shows how a man may fail even 
though carefully prepared to succeed. 

The old rambling, long-fronted house with huge 
iron-studded coach doors, and shell-topped niches 
and great wistarias, is the great house of Daniel 
Webster when he shone as Secretary of State. Here 
he lived in a whirl of dinner-giving, treaty-making 
and glory, supported by donations, twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars at a time from Boston, from New York 
and other sources. This great man had strange and 
lax ideas in accepting money, as the rich men of 
Boston and New York knew. He accepted this 
house as a gift ; but even with the generous donations 
made him, for the purpose of maintaining the es- 

124 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

tablishment, he found it impossible to keep up the 
full round of entertainment and living and removed 
to simpler quarters. (In the spring of 1922 this 
house is being torn down.) 

The contemporaries of Webster consider a story 
of his native place as illustrative of his standards. 
One Fourth of July he and his brother Ezekiel were 
given a little money for holiday spending. When 
the boys came back their mother asked Daniel what 
he had done with his money. He said: "Oh, I 
bought some cake, candy, lemonade and a pack of 
firecrackers." 

Then the mother turned to Ezekiel, ''And what did 
you buy with your money?" 

"Oh, Daniel borrowed mine." 

Meanwhile this old mansion remains as a delight- 
ful impression, with its great drawingrooms and its 
great walled garden and trees, and its setting in 
Lafayette Square, of an important American past, 
such as the making of the Webster-Ashburton treaty 
and the dinners and feasting that accompanied it. 

Since the passing of Webster, the most interesting 
occupant of the house has been the late W. W. Cor- 
coran, he of the Art Gallery and a wide line of bene- 
factions. 

It was long after Webster's day, that a mag- 
nificent ball was given in this house by De Montho- 
lon the French Minister, by the special order of 
Louis Napoleon. Washington has always remem- 
bered as a special feature, that Kate Chase Sprague 
was there as a bride, and that she wore a gown of 

125 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

white and green with a tiara of emeralds and dia- 
monds. She was remarkably beautiful, but more 
than one commented on the ill luck of a bride wear- 
ing green, and this was remembered later, when the 
domestic tragedy of her life came. 

A trifle farther along on H Street and just before 
reaching Seventeenth the historian Bancroft lived 
and wrote for twenty years. He loved Washing- 
ton as a place in which to meet people and to have 
access to books of reference. The house is high-set 
and square with very large windows and a beautiful 
doorway, a house recently given over to business, 
and at present occupied by a shop for women's hats, 
an inviting looking book-shop — a most fitting place 
for one — and the shop of a military tailor who was 
recently elected the head of the tailors of the United 
States. 

An elderly friend of mine who was a personal 
friend of the historian told me years ago, what he 
said was a highly naive reason why Bancroft left 
his footnotes off the 1876 edition of the history. 
Bancroft, it would seem, complained that readers 
used his notes only for the purpose of criticism, 
which they expressed in letters to him or to various 
editors, claiming that his references did not sup- 
port his general statements, whereupon he decided 
to leave out notes altogether. 

The most interesting church in Washington is St. 
John's, at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Lafay- 
ette Square. It faces the John Hay house, its side 
windows look into the Square. It was designed in 

126 



ABOUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

1816 by Latrobe. The White House was the only 
building that bordered on Lafayette Square before 
the conclusion of the War of 1812. The church is 
of brick, covered with stucco, and is in the form of a 
Latin Cross. One of its pews is set apart for the 
President of the United States, and is frequently 
used as intended. 

The general effect is of a little cream-colored 
Greek temple, surmounted by a New England belfry 
in three graduated sections topped by the tiniest of 
gold domes, and an arrow vane of gold. A large 
fan-light is over the plain front door. The porch 
pediment is supported by six charming ungrooved 
pillars. It is in some respects an adorable little old 
church, but fresh gilding and new glass of an un- 
attractive color have lessened the lovely old-time ef- 
fect of it. 

The queer little ends of every pew are of cast 
iron painted to look like walnut, and the pews are 
smoothly covered with rose-colored damask, making 
a delightful color effect. Some of the pews have 
personal furnishings, such as little desks on four 
slender legs — with lock and key. 

Bulfinch the architect admired little St. John's 
Church although it was a rival who built it, and he 
loved to tell of one of the rectors, old Mr. Hawley, 
who denounced all other sects very vehemently. 
The rector was a gentleman of the old school, and 
according to Mrs. Gouverneur, who wrote one of 
the best books of reminiscences of the city's social 
life, he always wore knee-breeches and shoe-buckles. 

127 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

In the "War of 1812 Hawley had commanded a com- 
pany of divinity students at New York, enlisted 
there for the protection of the city. It was cer- 
tainly a matter of regret that the peppery old divine 
was not on hand in Washington with his company. 
When he was ordered away to the front, he refused 
to go, and when later he took charge of St. John's 
Church it gave Admiral Decatur an excuse to evade 
church service because, so he said, he would not lis- 
ten to a man who refused to obey orders. 

Dr. Smith Pyne was a later rector and was often 
a guest at the home of General Scott. Full of fun, 
he was the life of the general's dinner parties and 
some of his quips have come down to us, as that of 
addressing the general, who was famous for his 
turtle soup, as Marshall Tureen. When Ole Bull 
was in Washington he was the guest at dinner with 
Dr. Pyne, and the old rector quietly remarked to the 
company, that *'if honorary degrees were conferred, 
our friend Ole Bull would be Fiddle D. D." An- 
other of his jests was evoked when a dentist was re- 
modelling his house and Dr. Pyne was asked what 
order of architecture it was, to which he replied, 
** Tusk-can of course." 

General Scott, who so often entertained Pyne, was 
a great epicure, as was Webster. It was of the din- 
ners of that day that Webster used to say that a 
good dinner is *'the climax of civilization." 

Scott's love for dinners once led him into bad 
politics, for he began a note to Secretary of War 
Marcy, meaning to be easy and pleasant, with the 

128 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUAKE 

•words "After a hasty plate of soup." He supposed 
his note was personal, but Marcy was his political 
foe and maliciously made the note public, thus suc- 
ceeding in making Scott seem ridiculous. 

St. John's Church witnessed an impressive fun- 
eral ceremony in 1902 over the body of Lord Paunce- 
fote, when Roosevelt was President; and Roosevelt 
threw stiff formality aside when he called upon the 
widow, and he threw formality aside when he or- 
dered out fifteen hundred troops to line the way 
from the Connecticut Avenue house, the British 
Embassy, to the church, where he ordered other de- 
tails to make it a formal state funeral and then sent 
the body home in an American warship. And it is 
one of the little facts of history that are worth re- 
membering, that although our Constitution named 
among the duties of our President that of receiving 
"ambassadors and other public ministers," no 
President had the opportunity for over a century 
to act on so much of the clause as referred to am- 
bassadors; for not until 1893 did we have an am- 
bassador here. Great Britain finally setting the 
quickly-followed example and raising the rank of 
Pauncefote from that of minister to that of ambass- 
ador. 

On tho Madison Place side of Lafayette Square 
stands a house still known as "The Little Capitol" 
— on account of its having been for some years the 
home of Senator lianna. It is a buff house of dis- 
tinguished appearance with a magnificent wistaria 
draped over the front balcony and a walled garden 

129 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

entered at the side. It won. its colloquial name 
through Hanna's influence over President McKin- 
ley. It is a romantic looking old house, and there- 
fore one is not surprised to find that a Duchess of 
Marlborough was born there. 

The surroundings of Lafayette Square, altogether 
charming as they have been for a century, seem en- 
tirely to be doomed. To almost every one this little 
square has represented Washington: it has seemed 
the heart and in some respects the heartbreak of the 
city. But it is to be ''improved" out of all recogni- 
tion. Already the Treasury Department has put up, 
to supplement the central Treasury Building, a 
grand new building directly across the street, with 
underground connections — a grand building but not 
in keeping with the traditions of old Lafayette 
Square. This may have been necessary, but there 
was no necessity whatever for giving prodigious 
space to the War Risk building at the northeast cor- 
ner of the Square. 

It is a corner building of great height and, with 
its immense number of windows, it fits the old Eng- 
lish rhyme, "Like Hardwick Hall, more glass than 
wall." It gives the impression of surely being the 
largest office building in the world, with desks for 
over fourteen thousand. It is a vast complexity of 
modern office cubby holes. It was probably quite 
necessary for war needs, but there Avas absolutely 
no reason for putting it in such a beauty-breaking 
location as was chosen. 

Another great break in the old-time air of the 

130 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

neighborhood of Lafayette Square will be the build- 
ing of the National Chamber of Commerce, which 
seems to have been decided upon for Connecticut 
Avenue and H Street. In addition architects and 
landscape gardeners have been encouraged to make 
all sorts of elaborate plans for the entire four sides 
round about the Square. 

Diagonally facing the War Risk Building, is the 
home of the Cosmos Club, in some respects the scien- 
tific center of Washington; and for many years be- 
fore it came to its present occupancy it was the 
home of Dolly Madison after the death of her hus- 
band. It is a three-storied house, with its entrance 
on H Street. It fronts directly on the greenery of 
Lafayette Square with excellent windows and with 
a black iron balcony, and now it is covered with 
rough buff stucco. 

Dolly Madison was so absolutely a social ruler 
even after her husband's death, that any man who 
should have the temerity to call at the White House 
on New Year's Day, and not proceed immediately 
afterwards to the home of Mrs. Madison, would at 
once be put socially in the black book. It helped 
Mrs. Madison in a very practical way, her husband 
having left her financially involved, that Congress 
saw fit to pay her thirty thousand dollars, a large 
sum in those days, for the papers and diaries of 
James Madison. 

Where the Belasco Theater now stands there for- 
merly stood a building used alternately as a board- 
ing house and club house and it was directly in front 

131 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

of that building and under the trees that General 
Sickles shot down and killed young Key. The 
Sickles home was on the opposite side of Lafayette 
Square, with its front door approached by a semi- 
circular stair, and it has always been believed that 
Sickles, watching from a window of the club house, 
saw his wife signalling Key. Nothing was ever 
done to Sickles in the way of punishment as his act 
was considered justified, and the killing of Key has 
always been looked upon as one of the memorable 
tragedies of the city. And this remorseless General 
Sickles was the same man who was known in the 
closing years of his life in New York as the devotee 
of tulip beds under his windows on Fifth Avenue ! 

The whole of Lafayette Square is lovely in the 
early spring, especially with the tender glory of the 
yellow f orsythias. 

The great square somber house from which Com- 
modore Decatur walked out early one morning to 
fight his duel with Commodore Barron stands on the 
northwest corner of the square. It is astonishingly 
gloomy and bare. It is of red brick and brown 
stone. A fascinating high brick garden wall, mat- 
ted with English ivy, extends along the square. *■ On 
/ either side of the front door stands a pair of high- 
set wrought-iron lanterns with slender supports. 
Four great chimneys are on the eaves' line of the 
roof, and the house extends far back along the edge 
of the H Street sidewalk in a line of kitchens and 
wood-houses with, at the end, a great arch for the 
coach-door. 

132 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

Mrs. Decatur had no idea of what had taken her 
husband away, and there was a pleasant gathering 
at the house that evening and Mrs. Cutts, the sister 
of Dolly Madison and whose daughter was to be the 
wife of Stephen A. Douglas, left an account of their 
sitting, laughing and talking around the table, when 
the news came, whereupon Mrs. Decatur fell un- 
conscious to the floor, and Dolly Madison and Mrs. 
Cutts cared, when he arrived, for the wounded Ad- 
miral, who died shortly before midnight. 

It is an amazing fact that although the house 
was built by Decatur in 1819, and he died there in 
1820, this short occupancy has made it known for 
over a century as the Decatur House, although 
great enough men afterwards lived there to have 
Decatur's name forgotten. Henry Clay was for a 
time an occupant. Martin Van Buren was an occu- 
pant ; and an odd looking window on the garden side 
of the building was cut by Van Buren so that from 
it he could receive and return signals with his politi- 
cal chief. President Jackson, who wanted to be able 
to communicate with him at any time from the White 
House. 

It is curious that, of the few houses on the square, 
one on the east and one on the west should be asso- 
ciated with sinister influence on the White House. 

After living on the west side of the square. Clay 
bought a building site on the Madison Place side. 
Clay won the money for the purpose by a successful 
card-playing bout, and Mrs. Clay, when spoken to 
about it, said calmly that she never objected to her 

133 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

husband's playing because he always won! After 
a while he is said to have traded the land for a jack- 
ass brought from abroad hj Commodore Rogers, a 
jackass of distinguished pedigree; and out in Ken- 
tucky the tradition is still preserved that that jack- 
ass was the progenitor of the mules of Kentucky 
who have achieved honorable distinction as *'army 
mules." 

Most interesting of all the private homes of Wash- 
ington is what has always been kno^\^l, on account 
of its shape, as 'Hhe Octagon," which is really a 
polyhedron ; and neither is it quite octagonal on the 
inside. It is only two blocks west of the White 
House and its neighborhood has recently become 
most interesting through the proximity of the re- 
markable line of semi-public buildings facing the 
White House Park. The Octagon stands at the 
obtuse-angled corner of New York Avenue and 
Eighteenth Street, and was built about a century 
and a quarter ago by a member of one of the most 
distinguished of early Washington families, Colonel 
John Tayloe, and was designed by Thornton, the 
architect of the Capitol. 

Its front is on a curve, and its sides and back are 
in queer angles and in all it is most curiously ef- 
fective. It is three stories high with a high base- 
ment. It is of brick with white marble entablatures 
and was built within sight of the White House. Its 
front door, convexly curved with little pillared por- 
tico, is approached by a short flight of stone steps, 
and is charmingly fan-lighted. 

134 




THE OCTAGON AND ITS OLD GARDEN 



1\ 



AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 

The door-handles are of chiseled brass ; and look- 
ing closely you see that the acanthus of the cornice 
is repeated in the little graven leaves on the handles. 

Entering the house, you find yourself in a round 
hall, over twenty feet in diameter, beautifully corn- 
iced in triple design. It is tesselated with alternate 
black and white marble. The building has charming 
mantel-pieces, and there are two ancient iron 
heaters topped with admirable black iron urns, one 
on each side of the hall and each in a little alcove. 
You go on through an arch, with a fluted pillar on 
each side. The arch is topped with a design which, 
contradictorily, is at the same time simple and 
elaborate. A curving stair leads up, encircling the 
hall in its rise. At the right, one flight up, is a 
large room, with a magnificent marble fireplace, with 
dancing figures on either side ; the old drawing-room 
of the mansion. In every direction you see some- 
thing exquisitely designed. 

>sor is the charm confined to the building, for be- 
hind it the grounds widen out into a delightful brick- 
walled garden, with box bushes bordering an old 
brick path, and ivy thick over the ground and a few 
old ivy-clad trees. 

The building is now the headquarters of the Am- 
erican Institute of Architects, the American Federa- 
tion of Arts, and the Archaeological Institute of 
America, all of whom frankly find inspiration in 
this wonderful old house. 

After the burning of the White House by the 
British, President and Mrs. Madison established 

135 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

their official residence in the Octagon, and in a room 
on the second floor the Treaty of Ghent was signed. 
In the reminiscences of the daughter of President 
Monroe, at whose house in New York City he died, 
it is stated that the Octagon was coimnonly deemed, 
in Washington, to be haunted ; the haunting taking 
the form of the violent not-to-be-explained ringing 
of the service bells in the house. The daughter of 
Monroe could only set down the curious story with- 
out explanation. But recently I was told by an old 
Washington resident that the reason for it was long 
. ago discovered, for the old-fashioned bellwires from 
all the rooms were found to run like fingers in one 
place behind the wall and here the rats had a runnel 
over them, hence the violent ringing at certain times. 
And the story arose and was for generations be- 
lieved that the ghostly cause was cruel treatment of 
the slaves of the household in the long ago. 




136 



CHAPTER X 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 



HE days when 

Sheridan lay ill in 

Washington and 

in fact dying, in 

the house at the 

north-east corner of 

Rhode Island Avenue 

and Seventeenth 

Street, he would look 

from his window at the 

statue of General 

Scott and would say 

that he hoped, if a statue 

should ever be put up to his 

memory, that at least he 

would be given a better 

mount than had fallen to 

l/^/a> *^^ ^^^ O^ P^OI" Scott. 

•^/csa The Scott Monument is 
at Massachusetts Ave- 
nue and Sixteenth 
Street, and one of Sheridan has since been placed a 
little farther out on Massachusetts Avenue, at Sheri- 
dan Circle and R Street. It is the work of Borglum 

137 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and demonstrates that an equestrian statue can be 
lowset. Sheridan's mount is in an excitable sprawl- 
ing posture and is curiously suited to its position in 
the Circle. It is certainly not the conventional 
bronze mount that he deplored for Scott. The wi- 
dow of General Sheridan lives at 2211 Massachusetts 
Avenue, and, also looking out at the Sheridan statue, 
is the magnificent home of the Larz Andersons, at 
2118 Massachusetts Avenue where I Street cuts 
across. It is a quiet Bostonian expression of gran- 
deur. One is tempted to consider it the finest pri- 
vate house in Washington. It really consists of 
what seem like two great houses of smooth cut stone, 
connected across the facade by two great gates, and 
with a masking wall enclosing a great court of 
entrance. 

Near this is the great house of a western miner 
which Washington small-talk declares is furnished 
with such things as a gold bath tub, and the same 
small-talk declares that when the house was built, 
although it was before the era of enormous prices, 
it cost three milUon dollars ; a house with the pleas- 
ant feature of fine gardens; a Sienna-like palace, 
marble-pillared, of stone and buff brick. 

Just a little beyond all this, is the back entrance 
to the home of our recent President, Woodrow Wil- 
son. There is a mysterious looking small door in a 
high brick wall, above which is a terrace twenty feet 
or°so wide, which is planted with small trees and 
shrubs. Beliind it rises the second inaccessible ter- 
race, with a stone balustrade, upon which the ground 

138 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

floor of the ex-President's house opens, through 
broad glass doors, and from which there is a far- 
stretching, A\dde-spreading view. Immediately a- 
rouncl the corner on S Street is the main front of the 
Wilson house. It is a large three-story house of 
brick with white stone entablatures. It has a door- 
portico in the center, with three great round-arched 
windows on the second floor, and has much of dig- 
nity. On the same side of S Street, at 2300, which 
is here a street of large new houses, is the home of 
the well known Herbert Hoover, hardly more than a 
stone's throw away; a three-story house of light-col- 
ored brick, a balanced house, with large central por- 
tico and in Georgian style. 

Diagonally across the street, on higher land, 
known as Kalorama Heights, is an open piece of 
land, for which the owner was offered a great sum, 
but which she gave to the city for a children's play- 
ground, with the condition that on that land the 
little grave of her pet dog should forever be cared 
for. 

Adjoining this playground is the land purchased 
just before the recent war for a new German Em- 
bassy. There is now on that ground the one old 
home of the vicinity, and it is of very great interest 
for it was the home of the remarkable man, Joel 
Barlow. He w^as a Connecticut poet who had 
amassed groat wealth as a land agent in France, 
selling to Frenchmen a tract at Gallipolis on the 
Ohio River. He came back to Washington, bought 
a great estate on this hill, which he called Kalorama, 

139 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

because of its view, and built a house, of which the 
present old house is the remainder, and established 
a social and artistic headquarters one hundred and 
twenty-five years ago. The house and the grounds 
were talked about by everybody and invitations were 
eagerly sought. 

The old doorway of the house still shows its beauty, 
and in front of the house is a semi-circular esplanade 
bordered by evergreen box-bushes, commanding, be- 
fore buildings and thickets were on the hillside, a 
superb view of all the city and the river. Now, the 
gardens are grass-grown, but in the early spring the 
daffodils still blossom and for years the white- 
coifed Sisters of Mercy have been privileged to come 
and pick the gay and sunny flowers for their hos- 
pital wards — from the poet's garden of a century 
ago. 

Barlow was sent by Madison once more across the 
ocean as a special envoy to the French Government, 
and found Napoleon absent on his campaign to Mos- 
cow. A definite order arrived to go after the Em- 
peror personally, whereupon Barlow started for 
Russia, only to be caught in the awful retreat of the 
French army. He died at an insignificant point in 
Poland and was buried there. 

"Wherever one goes in Washington, there are 
buildings connected with important people, of the 
past or present time. The rather severe house of 
Henry Cabot Lodge is at 1765 Massachusetts Ave- 
nue, a very wide house but low, of smooth red brick 
with a red slate roof. The front is gay with the 

140 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

gaudiest of tulips in the spring, and a wistaria blos- 
soms over the door. The house-entrance is at one 
end of the building, with a motor archway at the 
other end, sometimes closed with heavy doors, into 
which the motor car may plunge and go under the 
house and emerge in a courtyard beyond. 

In a pleasant green-growing neighborhood at 1603 
K Street is a house of homely red brick, a house 
rather short and fat, with six windows on a floor, 
where Taft chose to live; and next door at 1601, 
Dewey found his home anchorage, the house being 
of dark red with double bay windows, and with a 
white door a trifle below the level of the sidewalk — 
a rather squeezed-in effect — with the bays as if sug- 
gestive of the Bay which he made so historically 
famous. John Sherman, Secretary and Senator 
chose as his home a solid massive building of white 
stone, four stories high mtli open loggia on the 
third, overlooking Franklin Park. The house is 
1321 K Street and is fronted around a circular drive 
by a little topiary garden of thick-massed privet and 
box ; and next door at 1323 lived and died Secretary 
Stanton, in an old square-fronted house, masked by 
two great gloomy magnolias. A house on K Street 
within sight of Farragut Park, alive with interest, 
is that at 1730, with a high-set green stone basement, 
a sort of flat Mansard roof, topping the three-story 
height, a bay window all the way up ; a house of dark 
brick, with a shiny oak vestibule, a kind popular in 
the eighteen-nineties. It was in this house that Mrs. 
Hodgson Burnett wrote one of the most American 

141 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

of books and one of the most popular, ' ' Little Lord 
Fauntleroy. ' ' 

At the southeast corner of G and Eighteenth 
Streets lived consecutively Edward Everett, and 
Jefferson Davis; astonishing contrast. Go there 
now and you see only a tennis court alongside an 
office building, but you find compensation in the fact 
that at the southwest corner is one of the most de- 
lectable of old houses, with a white door and an 
eagle knocker, with a woman's face carved in the 
keystone of the arch over the door, and a wealth of 
English ivy on the walls. 

Of the increasing number of huge mansions built 
by people from various parts of the country, who 
have intended to make their home for their final 
years m Washington, many are shuttered and closed 
except for the lights of caretakers, year in and year 
out. The explanation may be that the families are 
attracted by the still broader social life of Europe 
or that Washington has been something of a disap- 
pointment socially or politically. Whatever the 
reason, there have already come to be a great number 
of such closed mansions and among them is a posi- 
tively superb building, facing in an acute angle into 
Dupont Circle; a house of pink brick, white stone, 
and extinguisher towers, reminiscent of the architec- 
ture of St. Germain. The house is full of palatial 
furniture, and has a private chapel and a superb 
private theater. 

Another of the hugely magnificent homes of out- 
siders IS the house put up by L. Z. Leiter, the father 

142 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

of Lady Curzon, a huge mansion, cream colored, 
vn.th. beautiful stone gate posts, and a high pillared 
white portico It is numbered 1500 New Hampshire 
Avenue and like the house just described is on land 
that points wedgelike toward Dupont Circle. 
Washington has always loved to tell, in what may 
be referred to as '* in lighter vein,^' of a Mrs. Mala- 
prop who said such things as, *'he bought the gar- 
bage of a monk for the fancy-dress ball,'' and " this 
authoress, who writes under a robe de nuit," or 
"Jack o' bean-stalk furniture." 

For many years the general vicinity of Dupont 
Circle attracted the builders of large homes, and the 
first was one of the homes of James G. Blaine at 
Twentieth and P Streets and Massachusetts Ave- 
nue, it was well kno\vn and prominent but far from 
beautiful. In the same part of the city is a huge 
palace in white stone, consisting of two immense 
stories and a roof-story, at 1618 New Hampshire 
Avenue. It was put up by Ferry Belmont. On its 
second floor are a long series of great round-arched 
windows on all three sides of the house. 

Pacing the house of Perry Belmont is the home 
of Thomas Nelson Page, and noticing that it was 
labeled I crossed the street to read, as Dooley tells 
of his doing at his early once-while home in Chicago, 
and the tablet merely read "For rent." The home 
of the gentle Virginian is at the corner of New 
Hampshire Avenue and R Street and is a large dis- 
tinguished looking house, four stories in height with 
a dormered roof; a house of mellow-colored brick^ 

X43 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

much like that of his ancestor Nelson at Yorktown. 
The house has little fluted classic pillars, a white 
balustrade around the roof, and modillions on the 
cornice, as they had in Colonial days in Virginia. 

An example of the shifting of homes of disting- 
uished folk is that of Secretary Hughes, who re- 
cently moved into 1529 Eighteenth Street, a yellow 
house with four stories and a dormered attic, with 
an English basement entrance at the sidewalk level. 

A large private house immaculately painted buff 
and green is owned and used by the British Embassy 
on Connecticut Avenue at N Street. It was never 
what could be called a distinguished looking house 
but it has an air of its own with its lion and unicorn, 
and behind it are four or five small buildings, look- 
ing like Quaker meeting houses and put there 
through the necessities of the Great War. It was 
long the case, and probably still is, that the city kept 
several policemen stationed within touch and call of 
this building : something not done with the buildings 
of the other Embassies. 

Probably the finest benefaction of the city is the 
Louise Home on Massachusetts Avenue between Fif- 
teenth and Sixteenth Streets. It was established by 
W. W. Corcoran the philanthropist in memory of 
his wife and daughter, both of whom had died and 
each of whom had borne the name of Louise. It was 
endowed for the comfort of the class whom George 
Washington himself, long before the founding of 
this home, used honorably and quaintly to call ''de- 
cayed gentlewomen.'^ The house is of brick and 

144 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

bro\vn stone, it is high-perched on terraced land, and 
is more beautiful as a benefaction than as a build- 
ing. An outline of its work which lies before me 
states, that everything is provided for those who live 
there, with the exception of clothing. 

Two towering pink magnolias rise beside the build- 
ihg; the shade of the flowers does not agree with the 
brick, but looking from the ^^dndows they are dreams 
of beauty. To the founder, the inmates, of whom 
the building accommodates about fifty, were his lady 
guests, as he liked to express it, and his spirit is 
still maintained. They have books, newspapers, and 
music and all the fine furniture of the Corcoran 
home. Mrs. Letitia Tyler Semple, second daughter 
of President Tyler, has been the most distinguished 
guest, thus far. After the death of President Ty- 
ler's first wife she presided as the first lady in the 
land at the White House. She was bitterly shocked 
by her father's second marriage, left the White 
House in dudgeon, and in the decline of her life, a 
widow, found shelter in the Louise Home. 

On Pennsylvania Avenue, facing the State, War 
and Navy Departments, and just around the corner 
from Lafayette Square, is the last mansion, still 
used as a mansion, in that vicinity. It was built in 
1820. It has a high white door, tall wrought-iron 
lamps at the foot of the steps, and a great brass 
knocker. It is a very wide house of buff stucco. It 
has a generous and hospitable air. It is still lived 
in by a family who hold to the old traditions. Gen- 
eral Sherman in this house married the daughter of 

145 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Ewing, with President Fillmore and the members of 
the Cabinet as wedding guests. And it was in this 
house that Robert E. Lee was otfered, by General 
Scott, command of all the Union Armies in the Civil 
War — only to decide for the Confederate armies in- 
stead. 

The great square-fronted house at 1155 Sixteenth 
Street, facing the home of the National Geographic 
Society with its red tiled roof, is distinctive as the 
home of Elihu Root. It is palatial in size, but very 
quiet, of gray-buff brick, relieved by a black iron- 
grilled door, and little iron flower grills at each win- 
dow. There are seven windows facing on Sixteenth 
Street, and the house is separated from the side- 
walk by exactly trimmed hedging, and a conven- 
tional circular drive. Root lived in this house as 
long ago as when he was Secretary of State, and 
Washington still chuckles over a diplomatic victory 
achieved here. For one of the Western members of 
the Cabinet announced one da;^ to his colleagues, 
that for a state reception that evening, at which they 
were all to be present, his tailor had made him some 
lavender trousers. They would have been right 
enough for afternoon wear but the cabinet officer 
had chosen them for the evening. The other cabinet 
members were appalled but they did not know how 
to act to avoid ridicule of their body. Then the 
matter was laid before Root, the diplomatic arranger 
of difficulties. Root went to the socially ambitious 
member, told him how pleased he was to learn of the 
lavender trousers, but he also said how positively 

146 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

grieved he was to inform his fellow member that 
though lavender would be so much of an improve- 
ment, it was an established custom of the Cabinet 
to wear black. And with this, the new member was 
satisfied, pleased, and properly dressed. 

Tlie rise of Root is one of the most striking ex- 
amples of advancement in all American history. 
Beginning with a secretarial connection with Boss 
Tweed, he had the opportunity, of which he took 
full advantage, of early learning much of practical 
polities. After that start, being a man of very great 
natural ability, he climbed up and up, round after 
round, until a succession of the highest offices had 
been given him, and these he filled to the honorable 
satisfaction of the country. 

Until the Cathedral on the Heights was started 
there were churches of considerable importance in 
Washington, yet they were not so important as 
would be expected in the National Capital. St. 
John's has been the most distinguished. That of 
St. Matthew, begun in 1893, still far from complete, 
and with an interior chapel which is a copy of that 
of St. Anthony of Padua, is among the most im- 
portant of the Roman Catholic. Standing very 
prominently between Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
Streets is the New York Avenue Presbyterian, a 
favorite not only of Lincoln but of Andrew John- 
son, James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, and John 
Quincy Adams. 

On Four-and-a-half Street, now John Marshall 
Place, at the corner of C Street, stands a dull choc- 

147 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

olate-brown church with a slender spire. It is the 
MetropoUtan Memorial, the Methodist Church which 
was most popular with Grant and McKinley. The 
Church of the Covenant was favored by Harrison 
and Blaine. Grover Cleveland, although not much 
of a religious man, had a fancy for the First Pres- 
byterian, a somber old church down on the way to 
the Capitol, in what used to be called the old court 
part of the town. Roosevelt was devoted to Grace 
Dutch Reformed. Many look upon the most fash- 
ionable church in the city as still being St. John's 
Episcopal, and it is often called the President's 
church. 

The old churches of the city are kept in mind by 
their parishioners and historic old houses by 
romance-loving historians, but few of even old-time 
Washingtonians know that there are still existent 
sufficient Lincoln localities for the reconstruction 
of the tragedy of the assassination. 

The White House, of course, which the President 
left on his way to the theater would be the beginning 
of the reconstruction. Even Ford's Theater on 
Tenth Street, between E and F Streets, where Booth 
pushed in behind the Presidential box and fired his 
shot, still stands, a broad square-fronted structure 
with sharp gable rising in the middle, although it 
very long ago ceased to be used as a theater. It is 
closed to the public; it is used by the Government 
as a storage warehouse; and the arches that once 
opened into the theater lobby are closed. In be- 
hind the old theater, and entered from the middle 

148 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

of the block on F Street, is an alley with a few little 
houses, and from this open space, reached by a final 
right-angled turn, was the stage entrance that 
Booth used, having first tied his horse in the alley. 
It arouses grimly vivid memories, to think of the 
broken-ankled Booth, coming into this very alley- 
way and untying and mounting his horse after hav- 
ing committed a crime which shocked the world. 
Booth had hired his horse at a little stable, toward 
the western end of C Street in the four hundred 
block, now part of a slate-colored garage into which 
the building has been, enlarged. 

The house in which Lincoln died is still standing. 
Instead of carrying Lincoln on a stretcher or in a 
military ambulance to the White House, which was 
only a few blocks away, and where he could have had 
every attention, and unlimited care and privacy, he 
was carried and lifted mth difficulty and physical 
sutfering up the twisted iron-railed little steps into 
the little house, a rooming house, at number 516 
Tenth Street. With further difficulty, he was car- 
ried into a very narrow room and laid upon a nar- 
row cot, which had been occupied by a young soldier 
named Clark, who seems to have been ashamed of 
even so much connection with the mighty Lincoln, 
for he wrote to a sister, saying that when a reporter 
wanted his name, he didn't give it, because he did 
not care to have his name given such publicity. 

The way in which the dying Lincoln was treated 
was amazing". Everybody seems to have crowded 
close about him, including most of the members of 

149 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

his Cabinet, who hurried to the place as soon as 
notilied. Lincoln had no chance for breathing 
fresli air; and it was not surprising that the end 
shortly came. 

The building in which he died is now used as a 
museum of Lincoln relics, gathered with infinite care, 
from near and far, by a Lincoln admirer, and many 
of the memorials are of great interest. There is 
here a great case of photographs of Lincoln, mostly 
by Brady, and as clear and perfect as if printed 
yesterday. And it is worth while noting that he 
appears in these photographs vastly superior in 
looks to the descriptions often given. Look care- 
fully over scores of these pictures, and you see that 
his manhood and his clothes are superior, not in- 
ferior, to the general style of the time. It was 
deemed a smart thing of that period to jest at Lin- 
coln's appearance. New York could accept Gree- 
ley's whiskers and weird clothes, but shuddered at 
Lincoln's features and tailoring. 

Already some of the events of Lincoln's last night 
of life have become vaguely mythlike. There is no 
agreement, even among formal historians, as to 
what was his last writing or his last official act. 
Some believe, but this seems to have been invented 
for dramatic effect, that his last writing was signing 
a pardon for a young soldier. Another story has it 
that his last note was a statement that no pass was 
any longer required to get into either Petersburg or 
Richmond. It is more likely that his last written 
words were hastily scribbled upon a card, allomng 

150 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

"Mr. Ashmun and his friends to come in at 9 A.M. 
to-morrow." Earlier in the day, he seems to have 
written General Van Allen, who had been urging him 
to greater care as to risking his life: *'I intend to 
adopt the advice of my friends and use every due 
precaution" 

The house of Mrs. Surratt, 604 H Street, where 
she and the other conspirators met and devised the 
assassination, is still standing, a two-story and base- 
ment liouse, with dormers; a buff-painted brick 
house with steps going up to a long-paneled door. 
The street is here a quiet and shaded street of rather 
old-fashioned boarding houses, and it is very in- 
teresting to find this particular house still in 
existence. How fascinating it would be if one could 
still go, in Rome, to the very house where the con- 
spirators against Caesar met! 

Across the park from the Capitol, on the same 
side as the Library, is an old-looking row now 
altered into houses, \\dth mansard roofs. This row 
of buildings, which has always been treated es- 
sentially as one large building, has recently been 
acquired by the National Woman's Party, who an- 
nounce that they will make it "a political watch- 
tower for women; a vantage point from which to 
keep Congress under perpetual observation. '^' 

Over a century ago these buildings were com- 
positely kno^vn as the "old Capitol," because Con- 
gress met there for some time after the burning of 
the real Capitol by the British. After that it was 
used as a politicans' boarding house, and it was here 

151 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

that Calhoun died, after Webster's final visit to 
him. The Civil War saw it used as a prison. Wirz 
of Andersonville was hanged at the rear of the Old 
Capitol. 

In an open space, off at one side of the Capitol 
toward the railway station, one may not in- 
frequently see chickens wandering about, and there 
comes a not entirely clear reminder of the geese 
who, by timely cackling at the Capitol, saved Rome. 
What may be looked on as a sinister warning to 
Congressmen and all others, is a Judas tree display- 
ing its curious shade of pink directly between the 
two Capitols. 

On the night of the assassination Booth made his 
way on horseback, to the Anacostia, and there 
crossed the bridge only a few minutes before orders 
were received from the War Office absolutely for- 
bidding any one to leave the city. 

Between the Capitol and the Anacostia on Mass- 
achusetts Avenue, in Lincoln Square, is what was 
for many years the best known statue in Washing- 
ton, for it was pictured and talked about by people 
everywhere, though for years it has now been prac- 
tically unvisited and forgotten. It represents 
Lincoln striking the shackles from a slave, and it 
was paid for by money contributed by slaves whom 
his Proclamation freed. 

Continuing beyond this one finds, in a gloomy lo- 
cation on the bank of the Anacostia, a most curious 
place, known as the Congressional Cemetery. Close 
beside the cemetery are such structures as the Alms 

152 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

House, the Work House and other similarly unhappy 
buildings. It would be hard to imagine a more 
gloomy enclosure than this cemetery. The origi- 
nal idea was to put up a stone for every Congress- 
man dying during his term of office, whether he was 
to be buried here or not, and also whether or not 
his family wished the body to remain here after being 
buried. Tobias Lear, long the trusted private sec- 
retary of George Washington, was buried here after 
his unhappy death by suicide. Elbridge Gerry was 
buried here after his sudden death in his carriage 
on the street ; and one might wonder if so gloomy a 
sepulture was a punishment for his "Gerryman- 
der " ! A number are here, who are neither Senators 
nor Representatives, such as a certain Count Gurow- 
ski who was husband of the Infanta of Spain and 
long a fig-ure in Civil War days, intimately known to 
the Diplomatic Corps, and generally deemed a spy. 
He lies under a crested stone. 

Before we get too far from localities more or less 
connected with Abraham Lincoln, it is well to call 
attention to I Street near New Jersey Avenue, and 
to a row there of three large double houses, of brick 
and stone, built by Lincoln's strong personal friend 
and mighty political opponent, Stephen A. Douglas ; 
Douglas having made choice of the center house for 
his own home. Curiously, of these two great men 
from Illinois, the one of Northern affiliations was 
born in Kentucky, and the one of Southern affilia- 
tions in the rocky northern state of Vermont. 

In the general district south of the Capitol, 

153 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

between the Capitol and where now stands the War 
College, much was built in the early days, for this 
region was expected by many to be the most pros- 
perous j)art of the city. The buildings put up in 
those early days were of excellent class, although 
as two wars had come, with one almost immediately 
following the other, private individuals were not 
prepared to put up residences of the class of Anna- 
polis or the James River. 

Tlie great Robert Morris turned his attention to 
this region. He was already the most daring specu- 
lator in backwoods land, owning a hundred thousand 
acres in one place, a million acres in another, a half 
million in another and so on. And even if prices 
ranged from ten cents to a dollar an acre for much 
of it, tJie totals involved were enormous. Naturally 
when the new Capital City was planned, Morris 
could not resist buying an immense amount of the 
area. While the site of the city was still almost al- 
together woodland, he owned thousands of lots. It 
was said that he owned more lots in the District of 
Columbia than did all the other owners combined. 

In 1796 he began building twenty two-story brick 
houses fronting on South Capitol and N Streets, 
which were never quite finished but went to ruin; 
As early as 1824 a description said that many of 
the doors and windows had been torn out for fuel 
and that the roofs had fallen in. They had never 
been lived in. And this at a time when the new and 
growing city was demanding homes ! There, in that 
region directly south of the Capitol, and almost at 

154 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 

the edge of the Anacostia, you ma}^ still see moulder- 
ing, scattered brick, almost hidden by cow-grazed 
turf, with here and there a chimney or a fragment 
of wall, or au ancient cellar way, 'Svhere heaves the 
turf in many a mouldering heap. ' ' Many of the un- 
fortunate investments of Eobert Morris may still be 
seen. And a striking feature of this entire desolate 
region is that it is tapped by South Capitol Street, 
nowadays scarcely used, although it is a splendid 
boulevard. The enormous losses of Morris* in Phila- 
delphia, supplemented by his losses here, made him 
a bankrupt, and he was consigned for years to a 
debtor's prison. Years before he had saved the 
United States by his generous financing but there 
was no one to save him. It was a pathetic ending 
for the great Robert Morris, and in his will he briefly 
wrote: ''Here I have to express my regret at having 
lost a very large fortune acquired by very great 
industry. ' ' 

It IS depressing to go about in this region on the 
Anacostia, between the Navy Yard and the War 
College, for there are numerous new little houses 
recently built here and not looking at all attractive, 
and there are a number of streets which are still 
just tracks through the earth, and the largest single 
standing ruin is a large barn or warehouse, built 
from fallen down structures, and whose long side is 
composed entirely of torn-out old paneled doors. 

A highly romantic character among the early 
"Washington speculators was Thomas Law, a young 
Englishman who had risen high in India under 

155 



THE imOK OF AVASIITNGTON 

Warron HaHtinga, first as that great man's secretary 
and tlicii as jud^n', collcfctor, and ho oh, as Tlastiiig's 
advanced liiiii. When the trial of Ilasiing's ini- 
pciidcd and I^aw was ordered back to hjii<^la,nd as 
a witness, he shrewdly took liimseli' and his fortune 
to America, lie qniie impressed (leoi\u;e Washing- 
ton himself, by his appcai-aiuu^ and apparent ability, 
lie married Eli>;a- Parke Ciistis, granddaughter of 
Martha Wasiiiiigtoii, and built a strikingly imposing 
honse at Sixth and N Stre(»ts; a house still standing 
and facing across to what is now Potomac Park, 
and to the Heights of Arlington, it is still in aj)- 
))earaiic(" pi'aclically as it was built, excepi that the 
original steps to the high-set front door have been 
replaced by ste))s of iion. The house is balconied, 
has a narrow single dormer and is banded with two 
lines of white mai'ble, extending around the house. 
There are two extremely large chinmeys and the 
(irst floor windows ha\'<' cnrx'ing toi)s and those of 
the other two stories straight. It gives a sense of 
the extremely [)ictu.i'esque to iind this house, built 
by Warr(Mi Hastings' secretary, still standing in 
this shabby part of Washington. ^Fhe house has 
an isolated lonely look; it looks like a. houses of 
ti"age><ly; and it is not sui'prising to find that Law 
lost most of his money, and that he and his wife 
sei)arat('(l after a i'ow ycwirs of married life. 

On (/ Street are numerous old houses, mostly in 
one single block, with fajdights and dentiled cornices, 
d()i'iners, and ))illared dooi'ways; still attractive. 

On old i<\)urtli Street, in this same i)art, of town, 

15G 



HOUSES AND MEMORIES 



between N and Streets, down near the Anacostia 
and Potomac Rivers, is what is understood to be tlie 
oldest building in the city, or rather an entire row 
of buildings put up at one time by a certain James 
Greenleaf. They are of red brick, with windows 
green shuttered and white stone capped. The second 
story faces out upon the cobbly gray pavement from 
twelve front windows, and on the lower floor are 
eight windows and four doors. There is one attrac- 
tive oval window and, from the roof-line of the cen- 
ter of the row, rises a pointed gable to give the build- 
ings distinction. The street, although broad, is 
entirely arched by beautifully interlacing elm 
branches. And the houses have always been known 
by the charming name of Wheat Row. 




***N^ 



157 



CHAPTER XI 



THE GATHERING OF ART 



-^ A -J-ASHINGTON is eager 
% /\ I for beauty. With per- 
% / % / haps two or three excep- 
m/ %/ tions however, or in fact 
▼ ▼ with only one really marked 

exception, the city does not class 
as artistic acquisitions the bronze 
[figures that throng the streets. 
,\^ They are interesting, but they are 
not art; the most marked excep- 
tion being the monument to Mc- 
Clellan, placed at the head of the 
Connecticut Avenue slope, on 
1~ " the heights. It is most admi- 
rably done. It is highly spir- 
ited. The general is seated on his horse, on top of 
the usual granite base, and with an unusual 
effectiveness of attitude to supplement the com- 
manding situation. You understand why it is so 
good when you learn that it is a MacMonnies: and 
I do not remember another MacMonnies in the city. 
Nor, although there are superb examples of the 
art of St. Gaudens in Boston, New York and Chicago, 
do I remember any statue by him here with the ex- 

158 




THE GATHERING OF ART 

ception of that at the grave of Mrs. Henry Adams, 
out in the suburbs, for which St. Gaudens was pri- 
vately commissioned. 

Congress has had in the past a general habit of 
skipping first class painters or sculptors, and has 
loved to give its commissions to mediocre men of 
political influence. This feature, however, has re- 
cently been changed in highly important degree, and 
Congress has entered an era of almost lavish artistic 
spending, mostly in architectural effects and in 
choosing the very best architects in the country, 
with most gratifying results. 

One is rather disturbed to find that a general of 
the caliber of McClellan is given a prominent posi- 
tion and the best of sculptors, for he is not nowadays 
believed to have done anything to justify his eph- 
emeral popularity. It is amusing to remember that 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, after personally meeting Mc- 
Clellan and being highly impressed, wrote angrily 
that he believed the general to have been held back 
for two weeks by wooden cannon. But Hawthorne 
was far from being a judge of military men, and, by 
comparison with his statements, one comes to wonder 
if McClellan may not have been a rather capable 
general after all. And his men loved him. 

No other American city has so many paintings 
and sculptures in and about public buildings or in 
other places open to public inspection. But, in the 
narrower sense, of works of art formally exhibited 
in galleries, Washington is not as yet to be com- 
pared with other great cities. But this need is now 

159 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

recognized and there is such planning along this line 
as will in time produce an adequate National 
Gallery. 

A custom -mistakenly tolerated has been that of 
permitting private individuals or families to put 
up on public property, at their own expense, monu- 
ments and memorials of their own relatives. An 
Art Commission passes on all private or public de- 
signs, for public places, but it has not aways decided 
competently. 

It gives a very wrong impressiion to the rising 
generation to see, for example, President Buchanan 
honored by a large and impressive memorial such as 
has recently been planned and such as the Govern- 
ment has decided to permit. His weakness and mis- 
judgment did so much injury to the nation, that he 
ought not to be commemorated as a great patriot. 
But wiien it was found that his niece Harriet Lane, 
who had become Harriet Lane Johnson, had left 
money for a costly memorial to her uncle, the plan 
was accepted. In this case the design for a huge 
memorial was approved, largely because Harriet 
Lane had been so prominent as mistress of the White 
House for hei^ bachelor uncle and because she had 
made a great impi'ession upon the English. 

Although St. Gaudens was not called upon, as he 
should have been, to do a great deal of sculpture in 
Washington, there was such a surplusage of com- 
missions in other places that he could afford to look 
tolerantly upon the developments of art in the Na- 
tional Capital. He declared himself as rather lik- 

160 



THE GATHERING OF ART 

ing the General Scott monument, by H. R. Bro\\Ti. 
**The figure is unusually excellent, and so is the 
horse," he wrote. **It is really a swell tiling." 
Now and then he loved an informal expression. And 
then comes the little sting of a conclusion: "But it 
is too bad that the General is too big for the 
animal ! ' ' 

As to the equestrian of General Thomas by Ward, 
St. Gaudens seems to have been in two minds, or in 
fact, of several. *'It is spirited," he said, and then, 
rather maliciously, *'Prom some points of view ad- 
mirable." And he finishes with what seems a veiled 
hit: ''The horse is unusually good." 

An association which stands with growing effec- 
tiveness for the gathering of art in Washington is 
the Arts Club. As the late James Bryce wrote from 
his English home, charmingly named Ilindleap, 
Forest Row, Sussex, to a leading member of the 
Club: ''I am delighted to hear of the efforts wliich 
your club is making to interest your fellow citizens 
in the further development of that love of Art and 
Beauty which Washington is so well fitted to in- 
spire. ' ' These words so well express a growing and 
highly important general feeling in Washington, that 
it is a pleasure to set them down. 

And Bryce continues, in a view of wise encourage- 
ment: ''Many things continue to make Washington 
a focus of art life and art thought. Its Art Collec- 
tions are certain to grow apace, and the comparative 
absence of manufactures and commerce leaves men's 
minds free to occupy themseves with pursuits which 

161 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

refine taste, and open up new sources of pleasure." 

The Arts Club is charmingly housed in an old- 
fashioned house on I Street, number 2017, on the 
way from the White House to Greorgetown. It is a 
residence of unusual width, and the beautiful lunette- 
topped Colonial doorway instantly attracts the at- 
tention of the passer by. 

Before the Revolution the land upon whixjh the 
house now stands was known by the homely name of 
''The Widow's Mite," and as time passed, was suc- 
cessively owned by military officers, members of Con- 
gress, and other prominent men. 

The house, three stories in height, has delightful 
windows and dormers and was the home of James 
Monroe when he was President Madison's Secretary 
of State. When the British invaded the city, one of 
the excited President and Cabinet conferences was 
being held here, only to be broken up by news of the 
swift approach of the enemy, whereupon, so the 
story goes, Madison galloped on horseback through 
the halls of the house itself to escape; although 
another story has it, that it was a British soldier 
who went galloping through the generous sized hall. 

The building is delightfully comfortable through- 
out, and is steadily doing an increasing work, 
not only for art but for highly intelligent social 
life. 

What has long been looked upon as practically the 
only definitive repository for art, has been that of 
the Corcoran Gallery. This was endowed by the 
philanthropist Corcoran, a trifle over half a century 

162 



THE GATHERING OF ART 

ago, '*to be used solely for the purposes of encour- 
aging Amej'ican genius in the production and preser- 
vation of works pertaining to the Fine Arts, and 
kindred objects." In the eighteen nineties it was 
found that a new building was needed and the 
present gallery was built. Through its being a 
foundation of such high aims, and through its so 
long being the only foundation of its kind in the 
city, .it long ago acquired a high reputation in the 
public mind. 

The Art Gallery is on Seventeenth Street at New 
Yort Avenue and looks out toward the White House 
grounds. It is an extremely good-looking building, 
in spite of the not very successful bulge of a mng 
that contains a hemicycle auditorium. 

The entrance to the art gallerj^, which is by far 
the principal part of the building, is up a few easy 
steps with a colossal bronze lion on either side. 
The building has a glass roof slanting sharply up- 
ward. The structure is of white Georgia marble on 
a lower section of pink granite. There are some 
windows on the first floor, but the second story rises 
in a solid white wall. 

On entering the building you find yourself con- 
fronted by a white marble grand staircase, fifteen 
feet in width, leading to the second story, where you 
see that the great skjdight is supported by thirty- 
eight fluted monoliths. The building is divided 
into a number of galleries and is admirable for its 
purposes. 

On the whole the collection is far from the high- 

163 



THE BOOK OF ^WASHINGTON 

est" order, although there are a few exceptions to 
this. The Greek Slave, by Powers, used to be gen- 
erally talked about, as among the remarkable sculp- 
tures of the world; but taste changes. Here and 
there in the world some superb example appears of 
such unquestioned skill that it stands for centuries 
as a model; which the Greek Slave has already 
ceased to do. Long' before the founding of the gal- 
lery Corcoran gave a great ball to both houses of 
Congress, at which he displayed this statue with the 
highest honor. It is remembered that General Sam 
Houston, arrayed in blue coat, brass buttons and 
ruffled shirt, gave the Greek Slave interested ex- 
amination ! 

The statue entitled ''The Last Days of Napoleon" 
has not high standing as a work of art, and yet it 
has a sort of haunting effect through its represent- 
ing the feelings of a man who has been utterly 
humbled after ruling the world. 

A Co.rot in the gallery was the first painting by 
this artist for which a fairly large sum was paid. 
It is the Ramasseur de Bois, an unusually large 
painting for Corot, and it shows a dark forest and 
a blue sky flecked with gray. It was bought for 
fifteen thousand dollars, whereas until then the high- 
est Corot price had been nine thousand. But 
directly facing the distinguished Corot there hangs 
a landscape so without merit as to give the whole 
room a jarring note. 

There are some military pictures by Detaille, 
vivid in their blue and red and hazy with mist. 

164 



THE GATHERING OF ART 

Your shoulders involuntarily straighten as his regi- 
ment passes by. 

There are several portraits of prominent Ameri- 
can statesmen by Thomas Sully. There is a cast 
of the remarkable Joel Barlow, so closely associated 
with the city of Washington. It is by Houdon, and 
shows Barlow with a queue, a bald head, a tuft over 
his forehead, an assertive tip to his head, and a sort 
of general alert aplomb. He looks like the kind of 
man who would naturally be sent to talk to Napo- 
leon! 

As the principal gallery of a great city the Cor- 
coran Gallery is markedly tliin, and the thinness is 
not improved by the abundance of Barye bronzes 
and pictures of sentimentality. 

The Freer Collection is of extremely high prom- 
ise. It is in a positively exquisite building. 

The collections of graphic arts are beautifully 
taken care of in the National Capital. The Library 
of Congress, in its Department of Prints, offers 
wonderful opportunity to study the finest examples ; 
and with generosity gives the opportunity to all. 
With the great resources of a Government collection, 
it has been ardently carried to liberal dimensions as 
to quantity and fine choice as to quality. There are 
entire floors of pavilions and galleries on one side of 
the Library given over to exhibitions, and every- 
thing not in plain sight is opened quickly for inspec- 
tion and use. 

To supplement this, the Smithsonian Institution 
has in its old castellated building on the Mall, elabor- 

165 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

ate exhibitions of the various processes of picture 
making. 

Those who feel the appeal of one thing in one 
special place, and one in another, instead of finding 
everything gathered and classified as if vdth a busi- 
ness card index in one museum, will be satisfied in 
this cit}'; as, in Paris, the student goes, refreshed, 
from the Louvre to the Luxembourg, from the Lux- 
embourg to the Carnavalet. 

These things have individuality, when you go to 
the Smithsonian for one, to the Freer for another, 
to the Print Department up on the hill for another. 




166 



CHAPTER XII 



THE MALL 



HE Mall is being actively 
developed into the place of 
beauty of which its plan- 
ners dreamed a century 
and a quarter ago. De- 
molition of the unfit which 
had intruded itself there, 
and the erection of the new 
and beautiful, have been 
proceeding side by side. 

The Mall is a great park- 
way extending in a broad 
, . , . , swathe, and in a long 

stretch from the Capitol to the Potomac, although 
originally the idea was to end it opposite the south- 
ern face of the White House. Its development has 
largely been hampered by the curious impossibility 
ot driving any vehicle throughout its length; and 
Its looks have been sorely injured by the setting 
down at random of numerous unsatisfactory looking 
buddings and by breaking its great length into 
ineffectiveness by greenhouses, chimneys, public 
offices and high iron fences. In all there has been 
a variety of the extremely good and the extremely 

167 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

bad built in it — the bad being somewhat excused on 
the ground of temporary needs. 

The heart of the Mall is the Washington Monu- 
ment, an obelisk of the tremendous and alliterative 
height of five hundred and fifty-five feet and five 
inches. But it is not the immensity of it that counts. 
It is the impressiveness of it, the nobility of it, its 
standing alone and rising from the grassy ground 
with absolute austerity and bareness. Not even 
trees lessen the grandeur of it. It is of such an im- 
posing height that either when approaching the city, 
or from any point within it, the great white shaft 
dominates the landscape. 

The play of light upon it on a sunshiny day makes 
it a shaft of glory. A passing cloud makes an un- 
earthly gleam pass over it. It catches the morning 
sun like a white mountain peak. The evening light 
lingers on it when dusk falls in the city. 

In the heart of the great white marble obelisk are 
a stair and an elevator. At a point above five hun- 
dred feet in height each of the four walls is pierced 
with two great loopholes which offer views stretch- 
ing over the city, over the rivers and the pine-clad 
hills, and on clear days to the distant mountains of 
the Blue Ridge. 

A marble monument was decided upon by the 
Continental Congress sixteen years before Wash- 
ington's death. Washington himself is believed to 
have approved of this site. But nothing was done 
until a half century after the enthusiasm of the Con- 
tinental Congress, and although the matter was 

168 



THE MALL 

actively taken up the cornerstone was not laid until 
the middle of the nineteenth century. For only a 
few years the construction went on; then the work 
was suspended for over twenty years, when again 
Congress acted, and appropriated sufficient money 
for its completion ; and not until 1885 was the monu- 
ment finished. The man who delivered the principal 
address at the laying of the cornerstone, was Robert 
C. Winthrop, who, by an odd chance, was Speaker 
of the House during the one term that Abraham 
Lincoln was a member, and Winthrop, now an old 
man, wrote the address for the monument's comple- 
tion. Stones of sentiment are built into the interior 
of the monument, gifts from many States and from 
distant and thrilling places : from ancient Carthage, 
from the Peaks of Otter, from the Parthenon, a 
stone from the spot where William Tell escaped from 
Gessler. This was sent by Switzerland and at least 
indicates Swiss belief in the verity of the story. 

It makes lovers of the simplicity and austerity of 
this monument aghast to learn that it is planned, by 
those in authority, to build a temple-like structure 
at the base of this great shaft. It is so superbly 
successful as it is, rising sheer from the green turf, 
without even the slightest extraneous details, that 
the fact that the original plan showed such a temple 
should not be an argument for spoiling a perfect 
thing. 

The day of the laying of the cornerstone of the 
monument marks one of the Presidential tragedies. 
President Taylor, ''Old Rough and Ready," pre- 

169 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

sided. It was July 4, and the President became in- 
tensely overheated. He sat in the sun, while a very 
long and tedious address was delivered, and con- 
tinued to sit exposed to the mid-summer heat, while 
another long address was delivered by George Wash- 
ington Parke Custis of Arlington, who was always 
boresome except when giving his personal memories 
of George Washington. As Taylor sat there in the 
hot sun, he unfortunately drank freely of ice-water. 
Returning to the White House, he ate freely of 
cherries, and with them drank a large quantity of 
ice-cold milk. Soldier's constitution though he 
possessed, he could not withstand the accumulated 
strain. He was at once taken ill, and in a very few 
days was dead. 

The Mall will in one highly important respect 
even surpass the early ideas, for a feature only re- 
cently thought of has been placed there; the won- 
derful Lincoln Memorial, at the Potomac River end 
of the space. With the Capitol at one end, the 
Washington Monument in the middle, the Lincoln 
Memorial at the farther end, and the WTiite House 
at one side, America will have the right to point with 
pride to a pre-eminent achievement. 

It is also planned to put up an additional memo- 
rial to George Washington, a structure with a long 
pillared front and a tremendous costliness, about 
where Center Market stands, but in the presence of 
the superb Washington shaft any such structure 
would seem supererogatory and, though the corner- 
stone is laid, its erection is seriously questioned. 

170 



jgpifh 



WASHINGTON MONUMENT 



THE MALL 

Beginning at the Capitol end of the Mall, after 
crossing the roadways at the foot of the broad stair- 
ways hciglit, the Grant Memorial is first reached. 
The principal figure naturally is Grant himself, 
seated quietly on horseback with his military hat 
pulled downi nearly to the high collar of liis military 
overcoat: he sits in concentrated thought in a storm 
of war and weather; but the rest of the memorial 
promises to be an excited medley of charging horses, 
fighting men, and general confusion. Without 
doubt, the entire memorial will prove to be highly 
satisfactory to veteran soldiers in general, when it 
is completed and when the grounds round about it 
are properly in order, for the committee who picked 
the design from those which were submitted in com- 
petition consisted of such highly distinguished men 
as Augustus Saint Gaudcns, Daniel Chester French, 
Daniel II. Burnham and Charles F. McKim. 

In the long mile and a half length of the Mall are 
a large number of war-time office buildings. They 
housed an immense number of clerks, mostly young 
women, who crowded swarmingly into every restau- 
rant in the neighborhood to purchase, so the aston- 
ished dealers w^ill still tell you, enormous totals of 
pastry, milk and fruit. But these buildings for 
temporary working needs are being taken down, as 
there is no longer need for them. There are also 
some enormous chimneys tliere, which may be con- 
fidently counted on to disappear. 

It has been the Congressional habit, when neces- 
sity called for a new public structure, to locate a 

171 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

site on the Mall, until the tract, half meadow, half 
park, has been muddled into disarray with many 
inharmonious buildings, some very good in them- 
selves. The building of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment on the south side of the Mall is one of the great 
new buildings, plain and quiet and classic, and is a 
great improvement on the old building, which was 
put up in the fussy period that someway remains in 
mind as Centennial taste. At the same time, there 
have been fascinating displays of flowers in the 
simple workman-like greenhouses of the old Depart- 
ment buildings. And vast numbers of interested 
visitors have attended ; as, responding to such a sum- 
mons as that of the modestly announced Amaryllis 
show, when thousands poured through the little un- 
ostentatious glass house, all in ecstacies over the un- 
countable rows of great pink lilies. 

About opposite Center Market, which you will 
notice was built to face on the Mall with more prom- 
inence than toward Pennsylvania Avenue, is the 
older of the two buildings of the National Museum, 
a large structure of bright red brick, trimmed with 
brick of blue and yellow, and with brick streaks of 
black! It is not fair to call it of the Victorian 
period, when it is really of the period of our own 
Hayes and Garfield. 

The new building of "the National Museum, also on 
the Mall, is of smooth white stone with low rounding 
dome, and, without any offense in design, it is some- 
what of a nonentity of a building. 

But thef National Museum has gathered wonderful 

172 



THE MALL 

treasure within the walls of its two buildings. First 
of all and most prominent are the varied memorials 
of the recent Great War. Of particular fascination 
is the long-barreled gim which, fired at a submarine, 
was the first hostile weapon fired by this nation in 
the war with Germany. 

There are unif onns and equipment of vast variety, 
and there are airplanes, cannon of all sorts, and 
examples of camouflage : in fact a great military col- 
lection, scattered through large rooms, basements 
and hallways, and in the grounds round about the 
buildings. 

The National Museum, as its name implies, is 
meant as a place where objects of interest and value 
to the whole nation are to be gathered and preserved 
and shown. There are the historical, the social, the 
industrial, the scientific exhibits; and here on the 
Mall these associated buildings are to stand in a long 
series. 

There is vast wealth of collections gathered here, 
such as only a government, with its wealth and 
power, could acquire. It has also attracted gifts 
such as only a government could command. 

There is a vast exhibit of the sources of medicines, 
with queer and interesting examples of roots, herbs 
and other strange materials from which they are ex- 
tracted. There are elaborately made models of 
coal mines. There are examples of the pottery of 
the world, including also, bronzes, lacquers and 
glass, arranged geographically. The enterprise of 
women interested in the encouragement of textile 

173 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

art, has resulted in the gathering not only of laces 
of every period, variety, and European country, but 
brocades, velvets, embroideries, and other tissues. 
There are exhibits illustrating spinning, weaving, 
yarn and cloth manufacture from cotton, wool and 
silk, and there is the first American cotton-spinning 
machine. There are rugs, there is practically an 
example of every household furnishing and orna- 
mentation and of the varieties of personal adorn- 
ment. 

Throughout, the touch of the historical, of the 
memory and memorials of the past, adds materially : 
and somehow, one feels a sudden and intense interest 
in examining a plain little oval table, a table quite 
without distinction of design, with spiral turned legs : 
a table frankly insignificant. In regard to this 
table, the tale is told that a man li^dng on the field 
where the armies came together at the Battle of 
Bull Run, gathered his simple furniture into a 
wagon, and moved far off to where, so he supposed, 
he would not be troubled by war. 

He settled at Appommatox, and on this little table, 
thus carried from Bull Run, Grant and Lee signed 
the agreement of surrender. 

There is a vast amount, in hall after hall, of furni- 
ture, house-furnishing and costumes ; the most exten- 
sive and most valuable in all the country: and the 
unique value of the great collection lies in the fact 
that it is not indefinite in o^\^lersllip in the great his- 
torical periods, but is almost all linked to individ- 
uals or families of prominence. 

171: 



THE MALL 

There are two superlative and rival collections, 
shown side by side, those of the Colonial Dames and 
the Daughters of the Revolution, covering the field 
of exquisite Colonial collections of silver and china, 
and the delicate small things of those early days. 
They are from all parts of the Colonial area and are 
definitely associated with such names of wide-spread 
social fame as the Allstons of South Carolina, the 
Cabells of Virginia, the Langdons of New Hamp- 
shire and the like. 

Turning from these cabinets of joyous belongings 
you are suddenly awed by coming, in a nearby case, 
to the death mask of Lincoln and the cast of his 
strong and shapely hands. 

Most marked, most noteworthy, are the collections 
connected with the Washington family and mth 
George Washington in particular. There is a little 
camp chest that takes you straight back to the Con- 
tinental Army and its long campaigns. It is leather 
bound. It is studded with brass nails. It is lined 
with rough green flannel. It was carried by George 
Washington during the war, and shows evidence of 
use that was long continued. Its little compart- 
ments hold skillets and grill and platters and plates, 
pepper bottles and salt box, all of the most practical 
and portable form — but at the same time beautiful — 
such as the round-cornered pewter platter, the deep 
saucepan with heavy round wooden handle, placed 
on the side as with a French coffee pot, or the little 
grill for cooking the slice of toast or two bits of 
bacon over the coals. 

175 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

There are ten superb Sheraton chairs which be- 
longed to George Washington, there are mirrors 
that were his, there are bandy-legged tables, there 
is a splendid shield-backed Heppelwhite, there is a 
comfortable, charming fireside chair, a little smaller 
than this type was usually made. 

An enormous value of this entire collection lies in 
its displaying the style of living and furnishing of 
that period, in its finest and final form. Here the 
sources are without question, and the period, the age, 
are known, and that the connection is so largely with 
the greatest of Americans gives the collection unique 
character. It is the last word in collecting ! 

One of the most engaging pieces of old furniture 
to be seen anywhere in the world is a child 's-size 
dressing-table, inlaid, delicate, taper-legged, a gift 
from Lafayette to Martha, the grandchild and name- 
sake of Mrs. Washington, who later lived at Tudor 
Place in Georgetown, when married. 

All the George Washington glass, the gold-mar- 
gined china, the pistol-handled knives, the Lowestoft 
with blue and gold, the Sheffield plate in which he 
took such pride, the urn-shaped lamps, the beautiful 
candlesticks, the pair of crystal candelabra, all 
arouse pictures of the rich stateliness of the life of 
those days. 

The official title given the general historical collec- 
tion of costumes is ''The Period Costume Collec- 
tion." It excels, in the superlative way in which it 
has been carried out, any collection of similar char- 
acter whether in this country or abroad, 

176 



THE MALL 

The most surpassing individual feature is the col- 
lection of costumes actually worn by the women who 
were mistresses of the White House, through all 
the administrations. The gowns are most carefully 
placed upon the plaster figures in a long series of 
glass cases. The figures make no attempt to be pre- 
cisely portraits but they approach it. Even the out- 
lines of the hair are in each case of the proper style 
of the period : and some waist-lines are of an incred- 
ible slenderness. 

Clustered around the cases of this unique collec- 
tion are other cases on the walls and upon tables, 
all showing American gowns of periods of the past. 
Here also are the costumes of some of the early 
Presidents, such as a military costume of Washing- 
ton, a sleeping bag of the inventively inclined Jeffer- 
son, a rich costume of John Adams, of silk as yellow 
as old gold and embroidered in blue corn-flowers, 
past republican belief! But the main interest in 
costumes lies with those of the women of the Presi- 
dency. 

First of all you see the quietly capped figure of 
the wife of the President whose administration 
closed before the White House opened. Her gown is 
of ashes-of-roses silk, with little trellis design, 
painted with a spray of flowers in the center of 
each ; a rich and quiet gown, as to which one wonders 
if this is of the color which, when Washington 
ordered it for her from London, he called a *' tabby" 

gOWTl. 

Mrs. Adams is here, a quiet little figure in a queer 

177 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

little gown of purplish blue, with a full skirt, 
embroidered soberly in the same color. This quiet 
garb was not typical of Abigail Adams, though evi- 
dently it is the best available for the collection, for 
one remembers details of her fine clothes, and her 
own description which she wrote home from London 
of the glories of her presentation gown. 

Dolly Madison is in full-trained gown of pale 
lemon-colored satin, over a skirt of white satin, em- 
broidered in garlands of delicate flowers. She 
holds a double kerchief of tambour in her hand, and 
a copy of Milton ; remindful this, of a characteristic 
of the clever Dolly, with whom it was a social affec- 
tation to close or open some literary classic as she 
turned to greet a guest; as when, so it is narrated, 
she held a book in her hand when she met young 
Preston, the son of an old friend. 

Great numbers of people go through this gallery, 
and it is noticeable that, after all these years and 
after the great variety of women who have held 
sway in the White House, not a figure in all these 
cases attracts the degree of interest that is accorded 
to Dolly Madison; which shows what personality 
will do. One wonders if half of those who murmur 
her name in passing, know the given name of her 
husband ! 

Mrs. Monroe is in white, brocaded with large 
single flowers, almost dahlia-like in color, with a 
border padded and wadded with cotton, and a 
Watteau pleat from the shoulders. Mrs. John 
Quincy Adams is astonishingly slim in white satin, 

178 



THE MALL 

covered with tulle and bordered by silver lace frills. 
Van Buren's daugliter-in-law is in full blue velvet 
with long full train, with point lace on her shoulders 
and an eighteen inch waist! — a figure resplendent 
with y^outli. She was a South Carolina beauty and 
her strangely head-dressed portrait still hangs in 
the White House. 

Mrs. Fillmore is literally in lavender and old lace. 
Mrs. Pierce is gentle and lovely in black net mourn- 
ing for her son, who was killed in a railroad ac- 
cident. There is only one wife given to President 
Tyler, his second and youthful one, and she wears a 
gown with a three-tiered flounce of airy silk muslin, 
edged with gold threads and soft queer-colored 
flowers. Harriet Lane is in the wedding glory of 
long widespread train of watered silk and fine lace. 

Mrs. Lincoln is irreproachable in purple velvet, 
corded in white. Mrs. Grant wears white brocade 
with silver threads. Mrs. Hayes is in white satin, 
pearl befringed — and with a bustle! Mrs. Gar- 
field wears pale lavender satin and lace — quiet, but 
with the longest train of all. Mrs. McElroy wears 
a gray brocade with steel beads. Mrs. Cleveland is 
in stiffened silk skirt, \\"ith a queer rose-pink velvet 
gorget. Mrs. McKinley is in a rich high-necked 
gown of white, heavy with pearls. Mrs. Roosevelt, 
in pale blue brocade with very fine lines, very simple, 
with transparent shoulders and sleeves, is reading 
a pamphlet. Mrs. Taft is so slight and so quietly 
dressed as to be almost unnoticeable. In the last 
case are two w^omen. Each is a Mrs. Wilson. The 

179 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

first is in white brocaded satin. The present Mrs. 
Wilson appears effectively in black velvet and jet, 
with low neck, and only black net over the shoulders. 
Between the two stands a vacant chair ! 




^*t>r* 



180 



CHAPTER XIII 



MEMORIALS THAT DO ADORN" 




ELL out in the 
hilly edge of the 
city to the northward, 
and near the Soldiers' 
Home, is a rather 
large graveyard, called 
that of Rock Creek, 
l^ containing a number 
of old graves with 
many more recent ones. 
An interesting feature is 
little St. Paul's Church, 
something over two hundred years old, which still 
retains much of its old-time aspect in spite of having 
suffered from prosperity, restoration and fire. It is 
the oldest church within the limits of the District 
of Columbia. It is a quaint little brick structure 
with the black brick headers of long ago, with a short 
nave, rather squarish, and with much English ivy 
on its old walls. Such fascinating old brick 
churches, all of about the same period, are to be 
found in many of the old parishes through all of 
eastern Maryland. A benefactor of long ago gave 
this church a glebe of one hundred acres, of hill and 

181 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

valley, and the glebe is now crowded with graves. 
The donor, one Bradford, a strange New England 
name for this part of the world, lies under a stone 
near the entrance, and immediately around the old 
church are a few flat quaint table-gravestones. 
There is a distinct effect of loneliness, owing largely 
to ancient monumental oaks about and near the 
church, and emphasized by the absence of vehicles, 
whose entrance is forbidden. 

On a hillside, some distance below the church, on 
a slope where the graves are thick, stands a group of 
gloomy trees, narrow cedars and tall umbrageous 
pines and massed rhododendrons and bushy low- 
growdng laurel; and secluded within this solemn 
grouping, with ''tall black pines like nodding plumes 
over the bier to wave," is a solitary grave guarded 
by a wonderful figure in bronze. 

It is a Saint Gaudens masterpiece, this monument, 
in absolute seclusion. The brooding bronze figure 
guards the tomb of the wife of Henry Adams, great- 
grandson of the second President, John Adams. 

Facing a massive stone bench, in the cloistered 
shade of the evergreens, hidden from the blue sky, 
is a large bronze figure seated on a gloomy rock ; a 
real rock, not one of bronze. The bronze draperies 
are solemnly simple: "clinging like cerements." 

A cloak-like garment covers head and figure, with 
only one arm and the face emergent. 

And such a face! A face representing the 
finality of death. It is a strong face, a fine face, a 
beautiful face, a face that stays in the memory. 

182 



MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 

Pettiness is not there; ostentation is not there; 
there is no grief expressed in chiseled words — no 
name. 

It is impressive. It is a little open-air temple of 
silence. It is a woman who will brood throughout 
all eternity. Seated on the black stone, her back 
is against a monolith. Her chin is upon her hand. 
Her eyes are cast dowm. She is musing and her 
revery will last forever. 

As one leaves it and turns across the hills, under 
giant oaks, one likes to remember that Saint 
Gaudens and Henry Adams were two of a group of 
close friends. The son of Saint Gaudens has re- 
corded that his father worked on this statue with 
infinite delight, and that he wrote to Adams that this 
was to be the ''result of Michelangelo, Buddha and 
Saint Gaudens." Ten years or more after it was in 
place, in 1903, the sculptor stood in front of the 
monument and said that he wished he could remodel 
the fold at the knees. Then, after a pause: "I 
believe that would be all I would do. ' ^ Adams found 
in it, "The Peace of God," but Saint Gaudens him- 
self called it, "The Mystery of the Hereafter." 

This memorial bronze, so quietly and unostenta- 
tiously placed, the memory of the great love of a 
quiet and unostentatious life, undoubtedly ranks with 
the great monuments of the world. 

One of the delightful sentences of Shakespeare is 
as modern sounding as if it were written but yester- 
day: "The memorials and the works of art that 
do adorn the city." Shakespeare makes these 

183 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

words refer to an Italian city, but how they apply to 
the American city on the Potomac! — rich as it has 
become in memorials and is becoming in works of 
art. 

Memorials may take such a fine variety of forms. 
And this thought especially comes because Henry 
Adams, who had the Rock Oreek Memorial made, 
could look out of his own window on Lafayette 
Square and see some superb memorials massed 
thick in front of his vision. It has long been be- 
lieved that the great old trees that beautify the 
square, the glorious elms, the most beautifully boled 
beeches, the great gloomy pines, the great glossy- 
leaved magnolias, were planted as memorials to the 
then existent States. The number did not represent 
a work of forestration as it would to-day, but made 
much more than the original Thirteen. 

One of the most familiar of the great number of 
outstanding memorials in Washington is the Du- 
pont Fountain, in the center of an elm-bordered 
circle at the crossing of the three highly important 
avenues, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New 
Hampshire . Wliat a New England setting! In 
the usual Washington way Avith its circles, 19th and 
P streets also take the opportunity to run in and out 
again. 

Back in the time of the Civil War, Congress voted 
a monument at this confluence of thoroughfares for 
Admiral Dupont. The neighborhood at that time 
was sparsely settled and quite ordinary, and the 
monument was paltry in quality, showing Dupont 

184 



.^.^„.:i:.':^ 




THE DUFONT FOUNTAIN 



MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 

as a square-built, rugged man ; which was sufficiently 
fitting, as he seems to have done square-built, rugged 
work in his Civil War career. But as the city 
developed, and this section and the thoroughfares 
became important, and great houses were built on 
them, the very wealthy Dupont family became 
rather conscious of the humdrum monument to their 
forbear and, accustomed to building roads across 
States or doing anything else that came- into their 
minds as desirable, they decided to do away with 
the humdrum and put up a beautiful memorial foun- 
tain on the now magnificent circle which Congress 
had so conveniently provided. Daniel Chester 
French was engaged as sculptor and Henry Bacon 
as architect — the names are worth remembering as 
their united work is so fine here and in other and 
greater work— and the Art Commission promptly 
passed in favor of the desirability of the proposed 
memorial. There is a simple, stately beauty about 
it. The bottom of the fountain is a broad pool 
from which rise emergent three lovely female figures, 
tucked as if in shelter within the paneled white- 
stone stem, and charmingly representative of the 
Sea, the Wind and the Stars— highly suitable for an 
admiral! From the perfectly curving white basin 
above their heads the water overflows and falls so 
as to frame these hauntingly graceful figures. 

This Dupont fountain, sheltered within the old 
greenery of the Circle, is a most successful example 
of a- small memorial, attracting immense attention. 
Everybody knows it as a landmark not to be con- 

185 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

fused with any other ; and in this it is not in the least 
like most of the equestrian circle-centers of Wash- 
ington, which are confused one with another in the 
public mind. 

Not only have there been many new memorials 
planned and built, but there is a constant ebullition 
of ideas, developing a line of further memorials of 
one or another kind. A great memorial bridge is 
planned between the Lincoln memorial and Arling- 
ton. One enterprising citizen after another thinks 
of a supposed need and pushes it, such as a huge cam- 
panile with the grea.test chime of bells in the world. 
Of course, being American, it has to be the ** greatest 
peal in the world!'' It is hoped that each State will 
supply a bell ; and the carillon is to be rung on every 
joyous national occasion. A Memorial Hall, with a 
great bronze star for every soldier killed in war, is 
another of the plans. Another project is that of a 
hillside devoted to gardens and outdoor theatricals, 
with buildings for women's advancement. And al- 
ready there are avenues of young memorial trees, 
and old beechwoods are preserved to honor a Presi- 
dent who like'd them. 

The Freer Oallery, one of the wonderful things 
that has newly come to Washington, will never be 
forgotten in recapitulating the adorning structures 
of the city. The building was designed, built and en- 
dowed by Charles L. Freer of Detroit, and the col- 
lections to date were personally made by him. There 
has previously been no collection of Oriental porce- 

186 



MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 

lains in Washington museums, and the Freer collec- 
tion will begin to fill the want. 

There is some doubt as to what the precise scope 
of the collection will develope into, but it has the 
precious Oriental cliina, which Washington needs 
very much, and many paintings by the best Ameri- 
can artists. 

As a beginning, a unique exhibit will be the most 
striking of the works of James McNeill Whistler. 
For the home of Frederick R. Leyland in Prince's 
Gate, London, Whistler made a most colorful decora- 
tion: an elaborate and even whimsical peacock 
design. 

But, with Whistler, friendships always came to an 
end. No man ever better understood the gentle art 
of making enemies! And somehow, before many 
years, the peacock decoration was not in the Leyland 
home, nor was it even in England, for it appeared 
as the principal decoration of Freer 's home in De- 
troit. And now it is to be the most important initial 
exhibit of the exquisite Freer Gallery. 

The bridges of the city are of high decorative im- 
portance. Especially notable is the long structure, 
a high-level bridge leading Connecticut Avenue over 
the ravine of Rock Creek and bringing into a fine 
thoroughfare connection a whole district previously 
isolated by a deep wooded valley. On each approach 
of this great wide bridge is a splendid monumental 
lion, just uprising in a guarding posture. There is 
a parklike setting to the bridge and its approaches 

187 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and its spaciousness is marked off by bronze eagles 
on pillars. 

With its entrance just off Massachusetts Avenue 
near Sheridan Circle is the striking p'Street bridge 
with its approaches marked by great statuesque 
bison: these two bridges making structures that 
would anywhere be distinctly memorable. The great 
Bison bridge gives a fine motor approach, again over 
the ravine of Rock Creek, and in this case to George- 
town. The old and still main-traveled road to 
Georgetown at Pennsylvania Avenue is not notable 
for beauty. 

The famous "Long Bridge" across the Potomac, 
so noted in local and national history, vanished long 
ago. As I write, you go to the Virginia side of the 
Potomac through Georgetown over an old bridge, 
but the great new bridge called the Key Memorial 
is nearly finished and will be a great thoroughfare 
to Fort Meyer and Arlington. It is named in honor 
of the author of the Star Spangled Banner. In time 
there will be another and magTiificent bridge beside 
the Lincoln Memorial, connecting the Mall with the 
Virginia shore. 

A fine kind of memorial, the spirit of which would 
well be imitated, is shown in a small memorial foun- 
tain set unobtrusively just outside the southern 
edge of the White House grounds. It is a simple 
fountain, but at the same time not insignificant. It 
is bowered in pleasant greenery and was put up in 
memory of two men. Captain Archibald Butt, a 
White House aide and F. D. Millet, artist and author, 

188 



MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 

who bravely and unostentatiously gave their lives, 
in order that others might not perish, in the great 
disaster of the Lusitania. Its location is fine from 
the standpoint of sentiment, for it is within sight 
of the White House where one was aide, but its 
placing is destructive to the symmetry of the 
grounds, and it is not therefore looked on with 
favor in its present place. 

There could not be a finer reason for a memorial 
or one that would inspire to nobler purpose. Of all 
Washingtonians, none past or present would have 
so appreciated the manly bravery of Butts and 
Millet as would have the great kind-hearted Lincoln, 
and now their monuments, great and small, are in 
sight of each other. 

Grandest of all the memorials in Washington is 
the Lincoln Memorial, at the western end of the 
Mall near the edge of the Potomac. It is the 
greatest monument that has ever been erected 
to the memory of one man. It is a superbly 
pillared temple of great size, of great symme- 
try, of great impressiveness, of great effective- 
ness. 

It is centered on a straight line extending from 
the entrance of the Capitol, down the Mall, and 
directly through Washington Monument. 

The Lincoln Memorial is serene, tremendous, 
massive, yet is at the same time t)f exquisite beauty. 
It is rectangular in shape. It is nearly two hundred 
feet long. Its central hall is within a colonnade of 
enormous fluted columns, double upon the eastern 

189 



THE BOO^ OF WASHINGTON 

front, the main facade, which faces toward the 
Capitol. 

The pillars number thirty-six, to keep in mind the 
number of States forming the Union when Lincoln 
died. The pillars are enormous in size, being seven 
feet four inches in diameter at the base and forty- 
four feet high. They are deemed to be the largest 
of their kind in the world, and the capstones are of 
unsurpassed size — yet the wonder continues that 
everything gives an impression of delicacy in con- 
nection with enduring strength; such as is the case 
with the splendid roof, perfect in proportions, dis- 
tinguished in design. 

Isolated and serene, the Memorial stands on an 
artificial mound that raises it above the level of the 
surrounding land. Henry Bacon was the architect 
and he devoted himself with intensity to the task 
that, more than anything else, must represent the 
labor and pleasure of his life. 

Within the central hall, which is seventy feet long 
by sixty high, is a statue of Lincoln by Daniel 
Chester French. The figure is seated and is faintly 
remindful of the standing Lincoln in Chicago: and 
if not quite the equal of that incomparable statue it 
is at least adequate. It is a figure of dignity, and, 
with the rested elbows and the wide Roman seat, fits 
perfectly the general shape of the room. Lincoln 
lox)ks thoughtfully out, between the pillars of the 
main entrance, and off past the monument to his 
great predecessor Washington, to the Capitol. 

Something attempted with far-sighted skill is the 

190 



MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 

building of a highly pictorial narrow lagoon ap- 
proaching the Memorial. The reflections and 
shadows are remindful of those in the long water 
basin at the front of the Taj Mahal, where the white 
arch and dome show double. The enchanting re- 
flections and shadows have been so studied that they 
are here to be marvelous — the water-shadows of the 
Memorial as one approaches it, and of the Wash- 
ington Monument as one looks back. These effects 
were worked out experimentally with a temporary 
basin, and now permanent stone is to be built in and 
the effect will be of ethereal loveliness with an en- 
vironment of dark and formal trees. 

In a room at one side of the interior is a great 
tablet of bronze on which is forever inscribed 
Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and in a similar room 
on the other side is his Gettysburg Address. The 
tablets are of immense impressiveness, and it is 
worth while seeing before us, on one side: ''With 
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in," and on 
the other side a tablet where one is thrilled to read : 
''That government of the people, by the people, for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth.'* 

On each side of the bronze tablets are modeled, as 
parts of the tablets, long palm branches of bronze, 
curiously simple and impressive, and above the 
tablets are high-banded mural decorations by Jules 
Guerin, in dullish blue and red and brown and green ; 
positive yet tempered. These take the coldness 

191 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

from the room and give an impression of a living 
memorial rather than the feeling of a tomb. 

The Memorial gives a distinguished and curious 
feeling of isolation : one feels, in going toward the 
pillared glory, as if walking across the plain to 
pillared Paestum. Yet this Memorial, although it 
has a landscape to itself, is readily reachable, for it 
is on the Potomac's bank, adjacent to the main part 
of the city and across from the heights of Arlington. 

Never before in history has a man begun as 
humbly as in Lincoln's log cabin and attained such 
memorial fame. Immovable, immortal, eminent: 
such was Lincoln and such is this monument. 




192 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 



ASHING- 
TON, now 

pre-eminent- 
ly the American 
city of titles, was 
almost from the 
beginning a city of 
American titles — a 
very different 
thing. This was 
noted, in particu- 
lar, by that ex- 
tremely observant 
and widely trav- 
.. eled architect, Lat- 
robe, who wrote cheerfully, a hundred years ago, 
that he noticed that x\merica was like Poland, for 
everj'body in Poland had a title ! Only, as he com- 
mented, instead of there being counts here as in Po- 
land, there was a crowding of captains, majors, 
colonels, generals. And this he found to be espe- 
cially the case in Washington. 

It seems incredible, but one of the books of 

193 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

memories of long-ago Washington — by Mrs. 
Gouverneur, Monroe 's daughter and a White House 
bride — tells of a visit to Washington in the early 
40 's by the first James Gordon Bennett and his 
newly-made wife, just as there was to be a great 
charity ball, a social event of high order. Among 
the patronesses were Dolly Madison, Mrs. Tayloe 
and Mrs. Gouverneur herself. And when Bennett 
asked for tickets, the request was granted only with 
the definite promise on his part that he would not 
describe the ball in his newspaper. Two days later, 
however, an extended account, with names in full, 
appeared in the New York Herald, greatly to the 
indignation of the managers of the ball. For here 
is the difference that has come about. At that time, 
so Mrs. Gouverneur wrote, it was expected that a 
woman 's na'me should appear in the public prints but 
twice: first, upon the occasion of her marriage, 
and second and last upon the occasion of her death. 

How startled the women of those days would now 
be with long columns of news of society in every 
issue of every newspaper and with several pages on 
Sunday ! Not only with an intense ambition on the 
part of society women that their names appear, but 
also that their portraits be given, and especially in 
the elaborate picture supplements. 

But the women of those days, even when in their 
aged and declining years, were not without 
publicity, although it was secured in a quiet way. 
For instance, it was well known at the time and has 
been remembered ever since that when Mrs. 

194 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

Madison, who so objected to Bennett's method, was 
formally called upon by the tall and impressive 
General Winfield Scott in the last years of her long 
life, he always wore his full uniform and made a 
solemn function out of what might have been a 
simple neighborly affair. 

The Scotts were both Virginians and had a home 
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, besides, but settled them- 
selves in Washington about 1850 in a house on H 
Street between 13th and 14th. It was one of the 
''Chain Houses" so-called, built by Count de Menon 
and had a fence bordering it made of festooned 
chains. In another chain house, next door, lived 
another wonderful old lady of old Washington — the 
venerable Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, and here also 
it was the pleasant knowledge of the Capitol, that 
the full uniform was worn by the superb six foot- 
three general when he called. It is thus that many 
like best to remember these venerable and dis- 
tinguished old ladies, the famous widows of H Street, 
thus honored to the extreme. And, as to Mrs. Scott, 
the wife of the General, it was she who called the 
city a rambling, scrambling village, and was in 
turn facetiously known by Washingtonians as 
"Madame la General." 

Washington has always been a city strongly in- 
fluenced by Virginia ideas of chivalry. It per- 
meates all society. For Virginians were, for a long 
time, the most important citizens. It is always easy 
to hear stories, in Washington, of Virginia military 
gallantry, as of General Hood, who, expecting to 

195 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

marry a Virginia belle, sent an order to Paris, with 
one item reading, *'Mem. : Three cork legs and a 
diamond ring!" 

Of the general who defeated Hood, in the Civil 
War, General Thomas — not in love but at the Battle 
of Nashville — various pleasant stories are told, for 
he was a likable man who liked Washington. 
Pleasantest of all is that of his attitude when 
friends offered to present him with a house in the 
city. When he declined, the argument was urged 
upon him that a number of leading men such as 
Daniel Webster, had accepted homes from their 
admirers and friends and that even General Sher- 
man himelf, among military heroes, had done so. 
The house given to Sherman was at 203 I Street and 
has since been torn down, as has the house given at 
a later date to Admiral Dewey on Rhode Island 
Avenue near Connecticut. 

But Thomas only replied with courteous firmness 
to all arguments that it made it awkward for him 
when put in that way, but that he could not take 
more than the nation had given him, which he con- 
sidered quite sufficient renumeration. 

In recent years Washington has not only added 
greatly to what may be called the more familiar 
American titles but has also added largely to the 
lists of such titles as Secretaries, Assistant- 
Secretaries and Commissioners, and there has been 
an enormous influx of title-bearing people from 
abroad. 

With the vastly increased presence of titles has 

196 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

naturally come a vastly increased worship of titles : 
they go together. 

An important and growing class in Washington is 
composed of extremly wealthy folk who are able 
and willing to spend great sums in the attempt to 
establish high social position here. The object of 
this class is not only to gain the right to mingle with 
the great and titled, but is often to obtain an 
Ambassadorship, or an important place in one of 
the Departments, or to serve on some important 
commission or to entertain a king. 

No other city presents any such possibilities. 
These people feel that a few seasons in Washington 
and a large house of their o\mi give them a stepping- 
stone to the very highest honors. This plan gives 
them vastly more than money alone could do. Such 
people establish their families here and, cosmo- 
poUtanly planned, mount high in worldly place ; and 
Avith this there may be important double develop- 
ment, for this class are quite likely to retain as a 
bulwark their home, and their position in whatever 
was their home town, and at the same time they 
may succeed in their ambition to secure great place 
abroad. 

Marrying their daughters to men of title or, 
better, to men of great foreign distinction, often 
follows from a basis of Washington residence. Here 
friendships and connections are made with people 
from all over the world, and. if such a plan is de- 
liberately campaigned for, with a house in London, 
a villa on the Riviera, or a palace in Venice, with a 

197 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

private yacht and the lavish entertaining that has 
been studied in Washington, the world is theirs. 
The world is mine oyster, which I with gold will 
open! 

From these Washington mansions and seasons in 
Washington society, there have gone American 
wives for ambassadors from every country, for vice- 
regal place and honors; there have gone out wives 
for generals and admirals of highest rank in the 
most powerful countries of the world. 

With the growing dominance of titles in this city 
of titles an interesting change is developing: the 
practical disappearances of ''Mr. and Mrs." as in- 
clusively descriptive of husband and wife. 

After all, the form has not been with us for very 
many decades. Coming gradually in, it became a 
general custom: pausing a while, before general 
adoption, to be used to some degree as a title of 
gentility in Colonial and Revolutionary days, as is 
still to be seen on some of the gravestones of that 
period. But social custom long ago changed in re- 
gard to this, and neither "Mr." nor *'Esq." confers 
to-day the distinction it was originally intended to 
do. 

The capital of our country, which in the long run 
dominates social customs, has decreed, from ap- 
parent necessity, the dropping of the inclusive 
grouping of "Mr. and Mrs.", and this none the 
less inexorably that the decree has not been a 
matter of form but has come through changing 
custom. If an important man appears in the day's 

198 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

news he is very rarely "Mr." Every one in the 
city who pretends to standing or is conceded stand- 
ing, makes connection with a title. There are not 
only the old-fashioned Senators, Representatives, 
Justices, Secretaries of the Cabinet; all these and 
such as these are still existent in greatly increased 
numbers, with a multiple proportion of officially 
entitled Assistants. And the city, and the society 
columns of the newspapers, and very largely the 
news columns, teem with the titles of myriad 
foreigners and with titles to some extent secured, 
even by Americans, from abroad: all this in ad- 
dition to the titled nomenclature of the Republic. 

If Doctor Syntax had added to his various famous 
Searches, a Search for the Odd, he would find it here 
in our American syntax in the growing clumsiness 
of expression as to man and wife. 

''Mr." has practically vanished by taboo from 
among important men. In Washington a man may 
be President or Assistant Secretary: he may be 
General or Lieutenant. But he is something of 
title and is referred to with the title. The news- 
paper columns daily bristle with titles. 

Even the children can tell a captain from a major 
by the number of stripes of black braid that en- 
twine themselves on his overcoat sleeve. The 
Washington eye is trained to read the insignia upon 
collar and sleeve. The title goes with the clothes. 
No mistakes are made. 

In the face of the onslaught of titles the modest 
united "Mr. and Mrs." is rarely to be seen. But 

199 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

the severed "Mrs." remains and a great awkward- 
ness of expression appears in consequence. 

There can be no objection to such phrases as "the 
President and Mrs. Harding," "the Secretary of 
State and Mrs. Hughes, or Mrs. Blaine or Mrs. 
Hay," or "the Ambassador from Great Britan and 
Lady Geddes," for it is a matter of general intel- 
ligence that these names are associated with the 
offices held. The names of Harding and Hughes 
and Geddes are known. But it is an absurdity that 
any important part of the public can know the name 
of, say, the Third Assistant Secretary of State, or 
that of the Minister from such Graustark or Zenda 
countries as Bulgaria or Czecko-Slovakia. But in 
the usages of ordinary publicity such as that of the 
newspapers there is, to-day, nothing to associate 
coupled names as husbands and wives. 

From one single page, this is excerpt: "The 
Third Secretary of the Italian Embassy and Mme. 
Celesia. The Peruvian Ambassador and Mme. 
Pezet. The Military Attache of the French 
Embassy and Mme. Collardet. The Norwegian 
Minister and Mme. Bryn. The Charge d'affaires 
of Great Britain and Mrs. Craigie. The Roumanian 
Minister and Princess Bibesco. The Third Assist- 
ant Secretary of State and Mrs. Smith. The Assist- 
ant to the Attorney General and Mrs. Austin. The 
Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Mrs. Wood- 
bury" — that dine together or receive together or 
go to Atlantic City or Palm Beach together. 
Isn't there something wrong with our clever 

200 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

nation? Are all these people plain husbands and 
wives? "The Minister of Serbs, Croats and 
Slovenes and Mme. Gronitch," — this sounds 
positively polyandrous ! * ' The Former Ambassador 
to France (sufficiently indefinite!) and Mrs. Wallace 
will sail for Paris together." 

And there will shortly appear new complications, 
for women are about to secure a large number of 
titled offices ; and newspapers will begin to tell that, 
''The Congresswoman from — oh, New York, Penn- 
sylvania, California, any State — and Mr. Jones left 
yesterday for New York." 

That in practice there is seldom actual misunder- 
standing is not enough. It is a clumsy form, and 
as titles and the use of titles increase, the reason for 
a more efficient form increases. One wonders where 
the end will be ; what heights will be reached, what 
depths will be plumbed, before some clear-minded 
system shall be adopted. One can see how the 
French at one time acted upon the necessity of 
Citoyen and Citoyenne, one form for all. 

A most striking example of worship of titles in 
Washington was shown at a reception given by 
David Jayne Hill; so prominent in Grover Cleve- 
land's time. There were numerous notables among 
the guests. Hill himself led the procession into the 
dining-room with a Countess Thyrzo. (This is an 
exeprience that Saint Gaudens loved to tell). It 
was a time of intense feeling for democracy and 
therefore, by natural contradiction, the worship of 
titles was intense. 

201 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Never did two people walk together more proudly. 
In fact it was not to be denominated a walk but a 
progress. Two by two, like the formal entry into 
the ark, the entire gathering were to go. Hill looked 
straight in front of him, evidencing a pride such 
as had come to few Americanos. The Countess, 
richly gowned, went proudly on, filled with a sense 
of distinction of leading the way at a dinner at 
which Cardinal Gibbons was the principal guest. 
The order of proceeding had been arranged with the 
most meticulous care; which couple should go 
second, which couple third, and most heedfully on 
to the end, which was to be brought up by the red- 
robed cardinal leading the wife of the host. 

Neither Hill nor the countess noticed that any- 
thing was going wrong. There was no one at either 
side to smile in warning. All had been lined up 
for the progress into the dining-room. But when 
Hill and the Countess reached the head of the table 
and turned, prepared for the entire company to be 
settling into their seats with them, they were ap- 
palled to see that not a soul had moved in following 1 
Not one had dared to walk out in front of the 
ecclesiastical gorgeousness. All were busily bow- 
ing and bowing and waiting ^nd waiting for the 
Cardinal and Mrs. Hill to precede them! 

There has long been a considerable feeling to the 
effect that there is in Washington a settled society 
superior to that headed by the Administration. 
These supposed social leaders have been known as 
*' settled" or ''permanent" society and others have 

202 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

known them as ** antiques'^ — Mark Twain's name — 
and still others have called them ''cave-dwellers." 

There is certainly a society of this kind, a sort of 
social alluvial soil, a rich deposit of time, from 
Colonial days, from high oflBce, from heroes of wars 
and long-established wealth. 

That descendants of old families appear prom- 
inently from time to time is undoubtedly the case, 
part of this class being life-long dwellers in Wash- 
ington and part guests or relatives from other cities. 
I quote from a newspaper account of a Colonial ball 
at the Willard — not a gathering of the greatest 
names but of many names of the great, and showing 
the sources of settled society in the city. There was 
a Gorges, direct descendant of the English pioneer 
in Maine ; there was a descendant of the famous Sir 
James Johnson, so powerful in central New York; 
there was the great-great-grandaughter of William 
Vernon of Rhode Island, president of the Contin- 
ental Navy Board; there was William Fendall, a 
Washingtonian directly descended from the crown- 
governor Fendall of Maryland; there was Mrs. John 
C. Fremont, wearing the gown worn by her four- 
degree grandmother at a Patroon's ball in Albany, 
a hundred and sixty years ago. One man repres- 
ented his great-great grandfather Thomas Lee, a 
member of the Continental Congress from Mary- 
land, and his wife was descended from the officer 
next in command to Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga. 
There were descendants of Robert Livingston, of 
Richard Keene, in colonial times Lord of the Manor 

203 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

on the Patuxent ; there was a descendant of the col- 
onial Cabells, and a Lee of Virginia. But even 
here, as a piece de resistance there was General Per- 
shing, with Missouri and Nebraska as his back- 
ground. 

But always, in spite of the interesting character 
of many who gather here, the society led by the 
White House, the Cabinet and the Senate and the 
Embassies always dominates in the social life of 
the city — for they hold the golden cornucopia from 
which flows appointments and salaries, money and 
place. 

Even long ago, the old-timers did not socially dom- 
inate, for the novel '' Through one Administra- 
tion," written out of an observant knowledge of the 
city and apparently describing the time of Hayes, 
constantly pictures the power of public officials 
when exerted in social control, at the same time that 
there was a social life of residents not connected 
with officialdom. When there comes in the novel a 
great contest, the woman of the ''settled" society, 
who thinks she is leader, finds herself swept off her 
feet and lost before the unexpected entry into the 
social fray of a United States Senator and the wife 
of the Secretary 'of the Interior ! — although people 
in these positions would not find themselves par- 
ticularly important in other great cities. 

Such high and varied social triumphs may come 
to the man equipped with a large Washington house 
and a large fortune that the statement in regard to 
the entertainment of kings is not in the least an 

204 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

exaggeration. The master of a mining fortune, a 
Copper King, went to Europe, and through busi- 
ness affairs came in close relations with Leopold, 
the Congo-entangled King of the Belgians. That 
Belgian king had few friends, whether among roy- 
alty or civilians; his reputation had kept friends 
away and so the Copper King found little difficulty 
in making and pressing an acquaintance with him. 

The Belgian King spoke of coming to America 
and said that if he should, he would visit this Wash- 
ingtonian. 

So home the copper man came and, so the story 
has it, and it is too delightful a story to pry into too 
closely, he lavished every possible expenditure in 
outfitting, decorating and furnishing his Massachu- 
setts Avenue home, most marked of all being the 
putting in place of a gold bathtub, ready for the 
kingly form! 

But Leopold died without coming, and the Copper 
King did as the Belgian king, and died. And in the 
course of time the Great War opened and the new 
Belgian King, Albert, came to America with Queen 
Elizabeth. 

The Vice-President of the United States wanted 
to entertain the Belgian royalties at dinner. 

The finest residence in Washington, which was of 
a quality distinctly beyond that of the copper man, 
was offered and accepted; but the offer was with- 
drawTi because enough servants were not available, 
in war time, properly to equip the house. Then, so 
the story goes, the literal golden opportunity came 

205 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

— Royalty came to the house so long ago set in order 
for old Leopold ! The Vice-President borrowed the 
Copper King's house from the widow. So Belgian 
royalty saw at last the lavishness of that prepara- 
tion that had been made f-or Leopold! Royalty at 
length ate from the gold service even if it was rather 
in the nature of funeral-baked meats! The kings 
were dead, Copper and Belgian alike. Long live 
the King ! as they used to say. 

It is curious that while America has been so in- 
creasing in titles, England has been decreasing in 
this respect. The English peerage is threatening 
to become a disapeerage. And as to Continental 
Europe there have been such disappearances and 
changes that there are no royalties for English 
princesses to marry. Of the so recently intermin- 
able list of ruling emperors, czars, princes and po- 
tenates who ruled in central Europe, Johann of 
Liechtenstein alone remains as ruler and he still 
holds his tiny principality, a romantic place, only 
because he collects no tax and has no army! 

One strong reason why titles in Washington rap- 
idly fill the atmosphere is that the city is not large 
and that many of the people of title frequently 
shift their homes. Take for example the house 
of Senator Hanna, with its great drawing-rooms, its 
great fireplace of clear blocks of onyx, its French 
windows looking out over Lafayette Square — this 
house, built by a son of the Tayloe of five hundred 
slaves, was occupied by such titled folks as Admiral 
Paulding, Vice-President Hobart, and the Duchess 

206 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

of Marlborough in her early years. A still more 
striking example was that of the house next door, 
which used to look down into the same walled 
garden, but is now replaced by the Belasco Theatre, 
for this bouse was built by Commodore Rodgers, 
and among the names associated with it were Ex- 
president John Adams, Senator Calhoun, Senator 
Henry Clay, General Sickles, who killed Key at the 
door, Secretary Seward, w^ho was well-nigh mur- 
dered upstairs, on the night of the killing of Lincoln, 
and Secretary of State Blaine — who, after choosing 
a number of homes in Washington, found this a 
place in which to end his days. 

The gentle winter climate of Washington is un- 
doubtedly a factor in increasing the settling in of 
many families from colder sections of the country. 

A certain number of the class who come to build 
and to entertain, seem not to succeed in their ul- 
terior ends. And perhaps there is always a pro- 
portion who do not have those ends, although the 
Washington public opinion always ascribes such 
motives to them. 

The curious plan of Mie thoroughfares gives the 
city an enormous number of wedge-shaped proper- 
ties and wedge-shaped houses. The Octagon was 
the earliest of this form of building, and perhaps 
the most marked is an apartment house on Con- 
necticut Avenue, south of Dupont Circle, whose flat- 
iron rooms are so narrow as just to hold a chair at 
the end. Perry Belmont came quietly over from 
New York and built a palace on a street-bound wedge 

207 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

of land on New Hampshire Avenue and Eighteenth 
and R Streets. When the great war began, Bel- 
mont offered the use of this house to the Japanese, 
feeling justified in this because his ancestor, Mat- 
thew Perry, had made the first voyage that opened 
the ports of Japan to Americans. The city smiled 
at this, and called his house, ' * The opening wedge. ' ' 

As Mark Twain found Naples infested with 
counts, he would now find Washington infested 
with lords and ladies and titled gentry of all degrees. 
The Japanese, ever quick to imitate, excel in titles : 
princes, barons, counts — they have adopted all 
the feudal titles of European civilization and have 
added some of their own. And that nation has 
been of great influence in driving out our good old 
forms. 

Changes have been coming gradually and un- 
noticed. Mrs. Burnett, knowing Washington in- 
timately, seeing everything with her observant eyes, 
wrote of the city as it was half a century ago, that 
society was then led by bewildered Europeans and 
astonished Americans^ — Americans astonished to 
find themselves suddenly facing the responsibility 
of the high-titled positions, and Europeans be- 
wildered by having to adjust themselves to unex- 
pected novelties in democratic manners and 
customs. 

The great game in Washington is society. The 
great game is to land all the titles they possibly 
can at their dinner tables, with the especial ambition 
of seeing the names in the next day's newspaper. 

208 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

Even better, on one day the papers will say '*So 
and so will entertain"; then the tufted lion list will 
follow and next day *'So and so entertained" the 
tufted lion list, last night at dinner! Thus twice 
the titled guests are made to walk before the public 
eye. 

A frequent visitor of distinction who loved Wash- 
ington and Washingtonians even though at times he 
also loved to laugh a little at them, told, among 
other tales, of napkins of pink silk at an important 
dinner: *' quite impossible for a beard!" — he him- 
self ha\dng a French one. And he liked to tell of 
another dinner at which in the center of the table 
was a bowl of gold fish — with no one listening to 
the after-dinner speakers, because of watching a 
strangling and dying fish. 

An important feature, not for a moment to be 
forgotten, is that like the distinguished visitor just 
referred to, visitors find Washingtonians a delight- 
ful class. This is mainly because they are Americans 
in an American city ; almost the only foreigners such 
as are here, being those who are here on ofificial er- 
rands, and the Chinese colony that makes for a short 
distance a little Chinatown of one side of Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue, and a colony of about the same size, 
consisting oddly of Greeks who devote themselves to 
shoe-polishing, and patient celery-vending from bas- 
kets on the sidewalks. 

That there are no manufacturing interests to oc- 
cupy conversational attention and that the amount 
of mercantile interests is comparatively small are 

209 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

powerful abetting reasons for the intense devotion 
to matters social. The typical interests such as 
those of other cities are not here. People have no 
vote. It is an amazing fact ! The residents of the 
capital of this great Republic have no voice in 
publi'c affairs. Property holders do not have re- 
sponsibility for the taxes sufficient for their own 
city. Even the petty matters, like the large ones, 
w^ich would be decided by duly elected town councils 
in other American cities, are settled by a ''Town 
Council" of hundreds of men elected in every 
corner of the country from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific — except the District of Columbia! 

And for what Congress does not care to decide, 
everything is managed by a board of three ap- 
pointed commissioners, one of then an army officer.- 

So naturally the citizens turn with even far more 
than natural zest to the adulatory gossip of society, 
and the mulling of honors and titles and rights of 
precedence. 

There is much of truth in the cynical saying that 
society folk lunch in one house, dine in another, 
dance in several houses in an evening and are never 
at home except on their own reception days. 

iSo many come to Washington for Congressional 
or appointive terms, that they enter with tre- 
mendous zest into social affairs. The streets are 
filled with their motors in the afternoon with oc- 
cupants coifed and attired for -one "at home" after 
another. You come very soon to know the names 
of the principal social addicts. Society life in 

210 



THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 

Washington gives them no eight hour days! 

In a particular of picturesque possibilities this 
city of devotion to titles loses an opportunity. For 
the meridional street, the wide street leading north- 
ward from opposite the center of the White House 
into the hills far north of the city — a street with 
many a famous home and with semi-public palaces 
of great foundations, and with churches and temples 
— has a beautiful name bestowed upon it, which has 
failed to attach itself. 

Recently, to give this splendid thoroughfare a dis- 
tinction which it deserved but which its numeral 
name. Sixteenth, did not give, it was officially des- 
ignated ''The Avenue of the Presidents," with no 
feeling of doubt that the public would accept the 
name eagerly. How the French would have 
jumped at such a distinction! — they with their 
Champs Elysees and their Avenue de la Grande 
Armee and their Rue Royale! 

But this official renaming struck few responsive 
chords in Washington. In time "The Avenue of 
the Presidents" may be accepted, but never proudly. 
"Sixteenth" clings, like a burr. 




CHAPTER XV 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 



HAT this city is 
without even a single 
triumphal arch is as- 
X^ tonishing! From 
',' the beginning of its 
existence it has put 
up structures to do 
honor to every class 
of important event 
or person, it is rich 
with 'Hhe glory that 
was Greece and the 
grandeur that was 
Rome." And it 
seems impossible that 
it could omit express- 
ing triumph in an 
arch. This capital 
has memorial bridge, obelisk, temples, squares, 
circles, museums, libraries, amphitheaters, houses, 
churches, woods, but no sense of national pride has 
found expression in the familiar classic form of an 
arch. 

Washington is a capital city; and classic arches 

212 




THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

express the pride of national capitals. This is a 
classic city ; in every direction one sees the gleam of 
white marble colonnades. In proportion to its 
population Washington is the most classically built 
of the cities of the world. Yet, though for thousands 
of years there has been the erection of triumphal 
arches, this city, that has made such beautiful use 
of Greek and Roman ideas in its century and a 
quarter of existence is still without that superla- 
tively noble form. 

Recently, however, the city has constructed what 
will splendidly pass as a filling of the omission — and 
that it is in connection with a utilitarian structure 
instead of commemorative of some battle or hero 
marks the changing of the character of the times. 

Daniel Burnham designed the monumental Union 
Station that fills the arching need. Across its 
broad front spreads a row of nineteen arched 
entrances or windows. And the tall three central 
arches, the literal gateway of the capital through 
which many thousands enter and leave, make one 
huge triumphal arch. 

This huge, triune, triumphal arch stands out 
gloriously, and so admirably has an open space in 
front of it been cleared, that it can be seen from long 
distances, especially from the Capitol, thus giving 
it an access of importance. 

The building is of huge size. Its concourse is 
seven hundred and sixty feet in length. It is said 
to be the largest space in the world under one roof. 
And it is claimed that in the concourse, fifty 

213 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

thousand people could stand : one of those startling 
statements which for a moment seem incredible, 
but when it is remembered that those who love such 
statistics have estimated that the entire population 
of the w^orld could stand in the area covered by the 
waters of Lake George, one is reconciled to the 
statement after all. 

The great passenger space is of such grandeur 
and size that it calls for something dignified as a 
name, such as ''passenger concourse/' When some 
one, in a Presidential party who were leaving the 
station by the private Presidential entrance, glanced 
about for a final look and spoke of it as a great 
trainshed. President Wilson, who overheard him, 
and who in spite of his grim greatness dearly loves 
a simple jest, responded: "If the architect heard 
you say 'trainshed' there would be blood shed!" 

This is a Union Station in two senses. It was 
built by a Union of funds, Congress, the District of 
Columbia and the railroads uniting, for a union of 
the railroads, so there is no confusion of railway 
stations in the city. 

One of the awesome memories that visitors bring 
from Rome, is that of standing under the great 
brick barred-vaulted roofs of the ruined Roman 
baths, and a strange sense of revival of such 
memories comes when those Americans, reaching 
Washington, look up and see above, over the waiting 
Doom, the great Roman barrel-roof. 

Out in front are three superb, tall bronze-based 
Venetian masts, such as those which stand in the 

214 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

Piazza San Marco ; and when you see them with their 
banners bravely spread, you realize there is no 
way of displaying a flag so well as on a fine Venetian 
mast. 

In what was intended to be a great open plaza in 
front of the triumphal-arched station, at the con- 
fluence of seven thoroughfares of approach, has 
been placed in a view-breaking spot, a monster 
fountain meant to honor Columbus and set down as 
inopportunely as if it were a German *'denkmal." 

Immediately adjoining the Union Station is the 
new post-office, and with its long fronting serried 
row of great stone pillars it too is thoroughly classic. 
And both these buildings are distinctly super- 
classic in the number of inscriptions which are cut 
upon them in the apparent hope of being read: 
although there are so many, that if one really be- 
gins to read, he will likely enough miss a train in 
one building or miss a mail in the other ! 

The architectural character of the city is 
established by the public buildings and by the classic 
design of the majority of the beautiful and costly 
palaces put up by individuals or corporations for 
the use of public-spirited organizations, which have 
been established in Washington in important and 
growing number. 

Well out in the Avenue of the Presidents at the 
comer of S Street, is a classic temple. It is where 
the Scottish Rite Masons their stately Masonic 
dome decreed. You are struck with the feeling that 
you are looking at a temple built for the ages ; a^ d 

215 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

you are not surprised to learn that it was modeled 
after what the ancients called one of the Seven 
Wonders of the World, the ''Mausoleum of Hali- 
carnassus," in Asia Minor. As you look, you see 
that its pillars and roof have a strange familiarity 
and you remember the old wood-cut in the geography 
of childish days of that great wonder of long ago. 

But the building does not have fitting surround- 
ings, fitting environment, fitting accessories in the 
way of setting. It is the kind of building which you 
instinctively think of as, say, at the end of some long 
avenue of cypresses or standing beside gloomy 
water. It is austere. It should have a setting of 
great spaciousness. 

Here the setting is an ordinary city corner lot 
with this temple rising from the sidewalk edge and 
with modern apartment houses and residences close 
about. In spite of this, the majestic strangeness 
of the architecture gives it astonishing aloofness 
of effect. 

It sweeps upward from the sidewalk in broad 
granite steps reaching the basement story with all 
the effect of its being on top of a knoll. At either 
side of the entranceway, is a granite -sphynx of 
monster size, hewn out of the greatest stones ever 
quarried in America, one weighing one hundred 
and nine thousand pounds and the other one 
hundred and ten. To ascend the steps between 
these huge, solemn, couchant, guarding sphynxes is 
to feel put back ages ago into the enigmatic, the 
mysterious, the inscrutable and into the heart of 

216 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

ancient age. You feel a sense as if you might enter 
here, w^th Dunsauy's "Queen's Enemies." 

Above this plain basement rises a block-like 
center surrounded by an open square arcade of 
thirty-three great Ionic columns, each thirty-three 
feet in height. Naturally there is much of the 
sjTnbolic in the building; as, that the main floor con- 
tains thirty-three rooms. 

The floor above contains what is called the cathe- 
dral and is seventy-five feet by seventy-five, sur- 
mounted by a pyramidal dome, rising four-sided to 
a blunt top. 

The Masons feel pride in the fact that the corner- 
stone of this temple was laid with the trowel and 
square used by George Washington in laying the 
corner-stone of the Capitol. 

Always when one thinks of the classic of Wash- 
ington the mind goes promptly to the Patent Office. 
For it is one of the perfect buildings of the city. It 
is now somewhat dull in hue: it shows the smack 
of age and the relish of the saltness of time, as its 
hue has dulled with the passage of the decades since 
it was built. 

It is crowded within the space bounded by 
Seventh and Ninth and F and G Streets. These 
streets are even narrowed to hold the great building. 
On each side of these streets is a beautiful portico of 
Doric columns, that on F Street, with its portico with 
double row of columns, having been copied in 
pattern and size after a portico of the Parthenon. 

The huge columns of this main facade are in a 

217 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

t.louble row aiul the approaohinij: steps sprawl out 
upon the sidewalk. From this portico southward 
one looks through a vista bordered by ordinary 
business buildings on each side, to the insignificant 
rtM.1 brick of the Center Market. This space oc- 
cupied by the Patent Office was always planned for 
something important, though one does not precisely 
see why. It is always a pleasure to be reminded 
that this is where L 'Enfant phumed to put a sort of 
American Notre Dame. 

Over and over one is amazed that in the early 
days of the capital and the nation, such buildings as 
the Patent Office should have been built. It is highly 
worth while to walk entirely around this building, 
and you notice among other features the great stones 
set across the colunnis; you may look at the modest 
simple triglyphs, the modillions and eaves of white 
stone; the plain Quaker-like pediments. What a 
tremendous undertaking to haul such loads as this 
stone represents, over the mud roads of the ISoO's. 
Washington will never need what many cities 
possess, a museum crowded with cold white casts of 
classic forms, for the city itself is classically 
crowded for all to see as they walk on the streets. 
After all, much of the ancient heart of Rome is 
thick to crowdedness with antique forms; temples, 
and the Arches of Titus and Severus and frag- 
ments of beauty are within close touch of each other 
and the familiar line "Why is the Forum crowded?" 
may be taken in two senses. The ancients did not 
give spticious approaches to all their great buildings 

218 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

but lived close with many of them as the modern 
city does. 

One may well say, as to classic Washington, not 
only that it is a city of white palaces for public uses 
wherever you look, but that it has been a mistake 
when any other form was used. The greatest 
blunder of all was the huge building of the State, 
War and Navy Departments at the left of the White 
House, which is almost classic, but in reality incon- 
gruously nothing but a weak following of Mansart. 

It is planned that the Department of State A\dll 
soon have a great and beautifully proportioned 
building on the Jackson Place side of Lafayette 
Square. Until the change, it is in the southern 
section of the great pile that has thus far housed it. 
And in the beginning of the Great War no one 
thought of architecture when the State Department 
was flooded with appealing telegrams regarding the 
many tens of thousands of tourists abroad. It is 
said that seventy-seven thousand cablegrams of in- 
quiry or urgency were sent through this Depart- 
ment. 

The first Secretary of State was Robert Living- 
stone and Congress gave him two assistants and 
in those quill-pen days they drove their own quills ! 
And the affairs of the whole nation were handled by 
these three men. For a time thirteen books and 
nine boxes contained the national correspondence 
and archives. 

The original of the Constitution of the United 
States is kept in the State Department, as are also 

219 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

the Declaration of Independence and many otlier 
oflficial documents. Although the building is sup- 
posedly fire-proof, no one has ever taken that idea 
literally, but it was left for a Secretary of State far 
from the top in public estimation, Robert Lansing, 
to have constructed steel containers to hold in 
absolute safety the twor most priceless documents 
referred to. Also kept in this department is the 
quaint wing-armed chair in which Thomas Jeffer- 
son, in his little room looking out over Market 
Street in Philadelphia, wrote the Declaration. 

The perfectly proportioned Treasury Building, 
which has held its location at the right of the White 
House ever since President Jackson firmly struck 
his cane upon the ground to fix its site, still promises 
to remain there forever. Bulfinch, on a long ago 
visit to Washington, found that there was consider- 
able agitation for tearing the then partly finished 
structure down and building it elsewhere, but the 
forcefulness of Andrew* Jackson still dominated, 
and the building remained on its site. 

The building of the Treasury Department gives 
a fit impression of serenity, spaciousness, safety, 
•size. It has been a way in Washington, not only 
to follow classic styles but to model after this or 
that definite classic building; and one finds on this 
Treasury copies of the superb pillars of the Temple 
of Minerva. 

Except in war time, the public are permitted what 
amounts to liberal access to the building, although 
only within a very few mid-day hours, and they are 

220 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

permitted to see much of interest and vastly im- 
portant sights. 

There has recently been constructed directly 
across the street from the Treasury at the corner 
of Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Square, a 
Treasury Annex; a large and important classic 
building, planned by the architect Cass Gilbert in 
complete accord with the original Treasury Build- 
ing and yet with a different treatment of facades, 
giving a huge colonnade effect up the side of Lafay- 
ette Square. It is not as isolated from the main 
Treasury as it looks, for the two buildings are con- 
nected, under the street, by large subterranean 
passages which will be the principal channels of 
communication. It was safe to trust Gilbert with 
the task of making a design for a building to accord 
fittingly with the old Treasury and to stand fittingly 
on an old Square, immediately cornerwise from the 
White House, because he has a feeling for the old, 
having chosen his home, as he has, in the charming 
old gambrel-roofed, ''Cannon-Ball" house in the 
beautiful village of Ridgefield, Connecticut. 

Washington shows masterpieces of "annexing." 
The annex wings of the White House, which seem as 
if they had always been part of the structure, form- 
ing terraces on the main floor level, were designed 
by Stanford White and give great entrance halls 
and cloak rooms on the East Room side, and great 
offices and conference rooms on the west. 

The two great annexes of the Senate and House, 
constructed for offices for the members, are great 

221 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

white classic buildings, one at the right and one at 
the left from the great East front of the Capitol, 
fittingly filling what was trivially occupied land. 
Both these buildings are corner set, with spreading 
steps nosing toward the Capitol. The House build- 
ing has four hundred and ten rooms, the Senate 
ninety-nine. And they have under-ground connec- 
tion with the Capitol through tunnels in which are 
operated little electric trainways. These two 
large buildings are not only useful and not only 
beautiful, but in their similar, balanced architecture, 
add materially to the beauty of the Capitol. 

So successful are the white buildings of Wash- 
ington, facing each other in every direction in which 
one looks, with everywhere Greek meeting Greek, 
so to speak, that one feels sure that there must be 
some subtle influence from it all. And at least, it 
may be said that there is scarcely an example of 
putting up a building that is not classic, that is not a 
mistake: such as the Post Office Department on 
Pennsylvania Avenue, which was thought at the 
time of its erection — it was then the city postoffice — 
to represent a distinct advance in taste, with its 
Norman tower and turrets, on the conventional 
classic. 

Among the important new buildings on Penn- 
sylvania Avenue is the Municipal Building which, in 
the heart of the city as it is, has been of great in- 
fluence in altering for the better the general neigh- 
borhood in its vicinity. It is the filling in, one by 
one, of these great white, stately structures that has 

222 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

changed Washington from a shabby city to a capital 
worthy of its name. 

That great height is not an advantage in build- 
ings, but that length and breadth are, is one of the 
things learned in Washington architecture. There 
is a dignity about the long colonnaded facades which 
do not rise in many storied aggressiveness. Wash- 
ington has had few great public buildings that are 
out of keeping put upon her streets, but a recent one 
is the lofty-rising War Risk Building, which looks 
like a giant filing cabinet unadjusted to its sur- 
roundings. 

The city has its old temple-like public buildings 
and its new, masterpieces in both periods. There is 
a square, often pas-sed on the way to the Congres- 
sional Library and the Capitol, Judiciary Square, 
which holds the 'quiet group of law courts of the 
District of Columbia, well-set, well-built, pillared 
and porticoed in great distinction even in this city 
of great temple-inspired buildings. 

One need not feel critical of the Bureau of En- 
graving near the railroad bridge over the Potomac 
because it is essentially a workshop with a need for 
powerful light ; and too, the building is isolated and 
mars no beauty spot even if it fails to make one. 
Its uncanny green and lavender lights weirdly draw 
attention to it. 

The big red Pension Building, belted with its 
yellow frieze of thousands of marching soldiers on 
foot and on horseback, represents a fine idea in- 
spired by Italian friezes. There are times when, 

223 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

looking at it, you are ready to realize that it is a 
great idea; that the frieze with its soldier-figures 
and horses and cannon, forever pushing on, is a 
thorough success; but the ugly deep-red brick and 
the unfortunate high-gabled roof over-ride all in the 
appearance of the building. The building itself as 
a whole, is unattractive and even barn-like. One is 
is not surprised to learn that General Sheridan 
spoke impatiently, when he first saw it, and said that 
his only criticism would be that the building was 
fireproof! But Sheridan always did have a rather 
sharp tongue; one remembers that when he was on 
military duty along the Rio Grande he declared im- 
patiently that we ought to go to war with Mexico 
again to compel her to take the region back. " 

The system at the Pension Bureau is said to be 
so perfect that huge though the building is and 
immense its records, the pension papers of any 
soldier may be located within five minutes. Which 
marks a very different condition from the time when 
President Lincoln went one night to his Secretary 
of War and said: ''Stanton, how can I get a pen- 
sion matter straightened up? I've promised an old 
mother to fix it for her son and I've spent all day 
waiting and watching." ''Did you tell them you 
were the President?" said Stanton. "No," said 
Lincoln; "that didn't seem just the thing to do; I 
ought to have got it as a citizen." When Stanton 
sent word that the President had wasted a day at 
the Pension ofl5ce there was a frightened five-minute 
search with immediate results ; the first five-minute 

224 



THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 

pension service in the history of the bureau, but not 
the last! 

The ancient classic has become good republican 
form. '*It was Greek to me," is one of the sur- 
prising phrases of Shakespeare ; and it surprisingly 
fits this beautiful city of Washington — for here 
truly the splendor falls on classic walls. 




225 



CHAPTER XVI 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 



USH-BEAEDED Walt 

Whitman, making his 
daily round of the Wash- 
ington military hospitals 
up on the hills that we 
now call Moimt Pleas- 
ant, wnth his pockets tilled 
with short, sharpened lead 
pencils and paper wath 
which he supplied 
the burning desire 
on the part of the 
wounded to write home — 
what a fascinating picture 

is conjured up ! 

He would sit down beside one after another, talk 
with them, use all of his w^ill power to radiate 
strength, and on leaving for another cot he would 
quietly hand the precious material for writing out 
of his deep coat-pockets. Somehow, this offers the 
kindliest and loftiest side of his character, and 
simple as it is, it is one of the noblest of Washing- 
ton's memories of literary folk. 

And Whitman wrote ''Captain! My Captain I" 

226 




BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

The words ring like the toUing of great bells. They 
thrill— they tear the heart down to the terrible close 
of ''Lying cold and dead." 

Walt Whitman was the poet for the great national 
tragedy of Lincoln's death: no other American 
poet has ever reached this height. 

The great events in the city of Washington seem 
readily to cast somber shadows. The poem in 
which pleasant Quaker Whittier rose to a first 
quality and expressed the feeling of the entire 
North, is his measured denunciation of Webster. 
I'lchabod" was a sort of handwriting on the wall in 
its impressiveness. 

Yet by no means all of the literary influences of 
Washington have been tragic, for one of the most 
delightful, most cheerful, most humorous figures of 
fiction came out of Washington environment. In 
Washing-ton life, Mark Twain saw Colonel Sellers ! 
The creation of Colonel Sellers was so intimate a 
triumph of insight that you may still see the im- 
mortal character, shabby, hopeful, broad-brimmed, 
string-tied, black-clad, wandering about the lobbies 
of the minor hotels and the corridors of Congress. 

An association of Hawthorne with Washington 
came literally through London, where he met the 
future President Buchanan, then Minister to Great 
Britain, and was inexpressibly shocked and morti- 
fied to see, in the presence of British dignitaries 
standing about, our representative at the Court of 
St. James, calmly take out a flaming bandanna and 
tie a knot in the corner as a jog to official memory. 

227 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Buchanan, as President, still lives in Washington 
memory as a fine, old gentleman with a frilled shirt, 
thanks to liis portrait painter, and to a niece whose 
costumes and manner carried her high in English 
society. But the quiet writer of New England 
suffered; and he wrote formally in his journal that 
Mr. Buchanan told him that he was shortly to re- 
turn to the United States; and Hawthorne added 
that it could not be from political aspirations but 
"from an old man's natural desire for rest." But 
the very next year Buchanan was elected President ! 

Concord, Hawthorne's home, sent to Washington 
at the time of the Civil War, a young girl who was 
destined to become one of the most beloved writers 
of the country, Louisa May Alcott. She came from 
her quiet home and she worked as a nurse and the 
country was stirred by her sketches of hospital life. 
Undoubtedly the tragedies among which she lived 
in the hospitals opened her great heart and 
developed her insight. Julia Ward Howe found 
inspiration for ''Mine Eyes have seen the glory of 
the Coming of the Lord" through a Washington 
visit and going out to see the camps in Virginia ; and 
she expressed a thrill of intense emotion. 

William Dean Howells, New Euglander by adop- 
tion, made his entry into literature by way of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. As the son of a Middle West news- 
paper editor, he was chosen to write the campaign 
life of the candidate— the first of the many lives of 
Lincoln— and as appreciation received the consul- 
ship in Venice, where he reveled in sunshine and 

228 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

romance for the four years of the Civil War. 
Fifty years later, at the opening of the Great War, 
when too old himself to fight, he was an active leader 
among belligerents. 

Joel Barlow, that remarkable man in his re- 
markable estate of Kalorama, seems to have been 
the first poet of any importance who made Wash- 
ington his field, doing so on the grand scale. 
There are two ways of living the literary life in 
Washington: a few have found it possible to 
choose the grand style with practical permanency 
— Barlow, Henry Adams, John Hay, Mrs. Larz 
Anderson, Thomas Nelson Page. The others have 
lived from modest to poor, from the small home to 
the ''bo'din' house" so characteristic a feature of 
Washington life. Of this class, few have aimed at 
a more than temporary home here. But practically 
every literary man and woman comes to the capital 
for at least a time. 

Within a few years of Barlow's ''Columbiad," 
which was an epic poem of large size, elaborately 
published, inspired by the national history and its 
early heroes. Barlow's contemporary poet, Timothy 
Dwight, the great President of Yale, inspired by the 
burning of Washington, wrote feelingly of that 
event. Yet in spite of all this the English poet 
Keats wrote to his brother George in America, in 
1818, expressing the profound hope that one of his 
American-born nephews should be the first American 
poet! and he puts his hope into rhyme, with its: 
"Little child o' th' western wild." 

229 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

That "Undo Tom's Cabin" ^vas first published 
in so Son thorn sympathizing a oity, is one 
of the romarkabk^ bits of AVashingtonian book hn-e. 
It appear6d hero serially and did not instantly at- 
tract sneh attention as its after history \varranted. 

Yet not far from that time Owen Meredith, who 
was here in eonneetion with the British Embassy, 
then on 11 Street, wrote "Lucilo" which, now for- 
gotten, was for years read by everybody. 

Newspaper correspondents have always been a 
feature of Washington life, and old-timers liked to 
say that the one that attracted most widespread at- 
tention through his letters to New York was the dan- 
dihed N. P. Willis. 

Ren Perley Poore was not only for years noted as 
a correspondent, he being gifted with a remarkable 
sense of news value and readiness of expression, but 
he was also never at rest from turning out some 
compilation or reminiscences. 

One who was rctfilly much more important thaai 
AVillis was the woman who wrote under the 
pseudonym of "Gail Hamilton." whose fame and in- 
thieuce were nation-wide. "Carp." sent out for 
years a succession of highly interesting letters. 
And it ought to be remembered, credit ought to be 
given for it, that correspondents such as these and 
others of their general period, profoundly felt their 
sense of responsibility to the nation and stood 
absolutely for truth and good Americanism. They 
kept Americans up to the mark, they handled no 

230 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

propaganda, tlioy had keen eyes, cleverness and 
humor, and their readers profited by it all. 

That was a time when newspaper rivals were in 
the habit of saying cutting things regarding one 
another. AMien one of them flamboyantly wrote 
that he had *'a keen rapier to prick all fools and 
knaves, '» one older in the harness retorted that his 
friends had better take it away for he might hurt 
himself. 

Among correspondents of recent years have been 
Frances E. Leupp, Irvin S. Cobb, Samuel C. Blythe; 
and then one remembers that among the most recent 
of Washington correspondents was that man of 
many activities, William Jennings Bryan. 

A large part of the American literary horizon was 
filled some years ago by the voluminous novels of 
Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth, and the low frame house, 
set against the sidewalk and fairly overhanging the 
canal and the Potomac, in which she wrote and died, 
is still standing in Georgetown, on Prospect Street! 
When she went there to live, it was a neighborhood 
of convent gardens. It is now shabby but it still 
looks over the valley at the green Virginia hills. 

Two distinguished women who as novelists re- 
mained always in close touch witli Washington were 
Francis Hodgson Burnett and Mrs. Burton Harri- 
son; both of them have had homes here and both 
wrote of the city. 

Two recent successful authors, associated with 
Washington, have used the city as a scene. Sin- 

231 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

clair Lewis wrote "Main Street" and used closing 
scenes in it drawn from the life of the crowds of 
young women who icame here for government office 
work, during the Oreat War. He pictured the 
cramped quarters of their lives and the curious mix- 
tures from vastly different kinds of life, from 
different strata, and from different States, and the 
loneliness and weariness of it all. Temple Bailey 
has written in Washington for years such popular, 
cheerful books as "A Tin Soldier" and "The 
Trumpeter Swan," picturing the happy, sunny 
sides of Washington life in her happy, sunny way. 

Among the most charming of the literary associa- 
tions of Washington is Irving 's regard for it. 
This was apparently caused by Irving 's having been 
born at the very close of the Revolutionary War, 
that he was named for George Washington, that as 
a small boy he was patted on the shoulder by Wash- 
ington, and given a few friendly words. Always 
thereafter he felt pleasantly drawn to the city which 
Washington founded, and his presence aided 
materially in making a fine atmosphere. When the 
Government sent him as Minister to Spain, it was 
fully recognized that there could not be a better 
representative ; and Irving was able to turn the ap- 
pointment into literary experience. In Washington, 
Irving -seemed always to be on hand to meet the 
best and ablest among \dsitors. He met Dickens 
here and he met Thackeray. 

Pleasant it is to remember at least one bon mot 
connected with him, while in this city. It was told 

232 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

by President Monroe's daughter. Thackeray and 
Washington Irving were introduced by her, and the 
conversation turned to a new book in which, as 
Irving told, the heroine walked for miles in her 
stockings in the rain. At which Thackeray re- 
marked that it was ''shoeicidal." 

Dickens did not like Washington. The place was 
not attractive to him. It was an unkempt village. 
It was rough. Along the Potomac were tidal 
meadows. Its few good buildings were lost, to him, 
among the rough and tumble. All this was what 
he was looking for and therefore what he found and 
described. He, in turn, in spite of his genius, is 
spoken of in the memoirs of the time as an over- 
dressed cockney. 

Thackeray was of different order. For him, 
Washington put its best foot foremost. He in turn 
recognized what was best in the America of that 
period: its large proportionate number of able, 
educated and even cultured people. He would not 
write critically of the country. He wrote little of 
it even in personal letters. The one thing that 
really interested him and in regard to which he 
wrote extravagantly — mostly to women friends — 
from every city he visited, was the money he was 
making. The box-office returns gave him the key for 
appreciation. His contribution the day after leaving 
Washington in 1856 was a letter to a woman friend 
in England, declaring that owing to his profits here 
he expected to lay up, by the time he was fifty — 
twenty thousand pounds ! 

233 



THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 

Among other English celebrities, James Bryce is 
associated only with the British Embassy, for al- 
though he wrote importantly regarding our Com- 
monwealth it was not while he was Ambassador. 
John Morley, much though he has written on a wide 
variety of subjects, made no impression with any 
comments he may have given, with the exception of 
his one interesting declaration, grouping Niagara 
Falls and Theodore Roosevelt as two great natural 
forces ! 

The White House itself has been in recent years 
busied with the publishers. American Presidents 
have had royalties of their own! — publishers' 
royalties. The many serious books written by 
Roosevelt and by Wilson make an imposing shelf. 
Yet Roosevelt's personal taste seems to have gone, 
largely, toward humor among authors. He loved to 
call writers to his table at the White House and 
joyfully wrote a letter to the author whenever he 
liked a book. He cordially invited Mr. Dooley to 
visit him and wrote: "Dooley, especially when he 
writes about Teddy Rosenfelt, has no more inter- 
ested and amused reader than said Rosenfelt him- 
self." 

Roosevelt wrote gravely of John Hay at the time 
of his death: *'His 'Life of Lincoln' is a monument, 
and of its kind, 'His Castilian Days' is perfect." 
Did John Hay ever tell him that the publishers would 
not touch the Castilian book till he, the author, paid 
for publication? What a contrast between this and 

234 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

the almost unexampled sum paid in advanxje for his 
"Life of Lincoln." 

Always and easily one drifts back to thoughts of 
long-ago literary times. One thinks of Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes coming down to Washington and Antie- 
tam to look for his wounded son ; profoundly anxious, 
but noting from the car window for an article for the 
Atlantic, an interesting point regarding near and far 
objects moving fast or slow. That same son of his 
is here now, on the Supreme Bench. One wonders 
what he would write if he could be here now — the 
keen little doctor — and see his son sitting gowned 
among the judges. The man who could say all he 
did about old Governor Hancock '*all cock-a- 
hoop" would see things with a keen eye here 
now! 

Hawthorne wrote from Washington with some 
good words about Lincoln, but with, on the whole, 
such savage criticism that his publishers would not 
make public this part of his writing until years after 
both Lincoln and Hawthorne were dead. According 
to Hawthorne, Lincoln had been permitted by fate 
to ''fling his lank personality into the chair of 
State." He wrote of his "awkwardness, his un- 
couthness." "His coat and pantaloons were un- 
brushed," and his hair had "apparently been ac- 
quainted with neither brush nor comb that morn- 
ing"; and he felt sure that Lincoln had worn no 
night cap! With the presence of Buchanan's ban- 
danna and the absence of Lincoln's night-cap, the 

235 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

fastidious Hawthorne was easily shocked. How- 
ever, even Hawthorne condescendingly admitted that 
Lincoln had a sort of tact and wisdom and that ' ' his 
physiognomy, as coarse a one as you would meet in 
the length and breadth of the States, is redeemed, 
illumined, softened, and heightened, by a kindly 
though serious look out of his eyes and an expres- 
sion of homely sagacity." 

Another case of delayed publication had to do in 
a heart-breaking way with Thomas Nelson Page, and 
it probably affected the literary output of his entire 
life. The best of his literary work has been the two 
superb short stories, **Meh Lady" and '^Marse 
Chan. " * * Meh Lady ' ' was accepted by the Century 
some forty years or more ago and held in the edi- 
torial pigeon-hole for a dozen years : it never seeming 
for all that time, to the editor, to be worth while, in 
comparison to many an ordinary story. It was 
finally put in to fill a gap, and instantly became 
recognized as one of the greatest American triumphs 
of fiction. But the depressing delay must have in- 
fluenced Page's ambition and his life. 

An interesting literary figure of long ago was 
Father Pise, for a time chaplain of the United States 
Senate, a friend of Henry Clay, a very goodlooking 
young priest, a poet of Italian parentage. He be- 
longed over at old St. Joseph's, still existent in 
Oreenwich Village, New York, and was so popular 
that he preached to standing room. A rich young 
woman of Washington made Father Pise an oifer of 
marriage, whereupon he quietly advised her *Ho give 

236 



I 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

hei* heart to God, her money to the poor, and her 
hand to the man who asked for it." 

For many years, and of late increasingly so, the 
city of Washington has attracted great numbers of 
scientific and historic investigators, through her li- 
brary facilities and scientific societies and founda- 
tions. The Cosmos Club is the special gathering 
ground for this life, a club occupjdng the two ad- 
joining houses of the Madisons and Mark Hanna in 
Lafayette Square. This abundant scientific life has 
had much to do with keeping up the standard and the 
number of bookstores of the city. The bookstores 
are real bookstores, not novelty shops disguised by a 
name, and customers find the stocks full and those 
in charge conversant with what they are selling. 
This is remindful that in early days the city had a 
bookshop, Taylor's, where readers congregated to 
discuss books much as they did in the Old Corner 
Book Store in Boston. The shop was on Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue and the proprietor always kept his 
show-window curtains drawn so the light would not 
fade the bindings. He also had a bust of Sir Walter 
Scott over his door; and likely enough he did not 
know that Scott, kind-hearted man that he was and 
friend of Washington Irving, so allowed the animos- 
ity of war to curdle his blood that on learning of 
the burning of Washington by the British he wrote : 
"It was our business to have given them a fearful 
memento that the babe unborn should have remem- 
bered'': rather blood-thirsty for the romance-loving 
Scotchman I 

237 



THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 

A large white stone building at the junction of 
Massachusetts and New York Avenues, where there 
are also other thoroughfares entangling about the 
park-like area in which it is built, is the Public Li- 
brary of the District of Columbia. It is one of the 
busiest of libraries and its average of books is highly- 
chosen; it is a library of dignified, well-managed 
usefulness. It is of recent establishment and its use 
is the more marked because of the presence in the 
city of the greatest of all American libraries, the 
Library of Congress. 

The Library of Congress is within a great palatial 
building of the style of the Italian Renaissance. It 
stands on level land at no great distance from the 
Capitol, and facing it with no other building be- 
tween. It is nearly five hundred feet in frontage. 
It is three gre-at stories in height and of architecture 
that at once draws the attention. Next to the Capi- 
tol itself and the White House, it is by far the build- 
ing which visitors most desire to see. Perhaps it 
was in expectation of this popular interest that the 
building was not given the usual solemnity of a 
library but the gorgeousness of a palace. 

By law there must be two copies sent here of 
every book published in America, and in this building 
is the copyright office for the country. To this large 
total are added rare publications and manuscripts 
from all parts of the world. Every attention is 
given to readers of research and they come from near 
and far to profit by the wonderful opportunities of 
such a library of reference. And always there is 

238 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

some important librarian at hand, ready to give ad- 
vice and privileges. 

The building is topped by a dome of black copper 
with gold-leaf panels. There are, in all, some two 
thousand A\indows with those near the books hermet- 
ically sealed to keep out dust. But the memorable 
features of the building are the grand staircase and 
the rotunda. The grand staircase, abou.t which is 
lavished the gorgeousness of glowing mural paint- 
ings, a riot of symbolism and color, the great areas 
of soft mosaic, the glow of rich Italian marbles, pillar 
after pillar, arcade beyond arcade, the gleam of 
bronze — all mark an effort to outdo anything else 
that ever was done. The architect sought to outdo 
the Venetian glori&s of the Doge's staircase, the 
Roman splendor of Raphael's Stanzia, and to out- 
shine the fading glories of Fontainebleau. Seldom 
have architects had such an opportunity. And who 
shall say they have not achieved an American re- 
sult! 

It is the great quiet rotunda that is the heart of 
the building, with its solemnity, its bookishness, its 
obvious usefulness as the center for readers and 
reading, walled in by hidden and tributary masses 
of books, rising tier on tier, its galleries and alcoves 
all grouped about the central, busy, working desk 
of many librarians. 

The library is primarily for the use of Congress- 
men, and whatever they ask for must be promptly 
gathered. All sorts of requests come, for there are 
are all sorts of Congressmen. One day there came 

239 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

a demand for **all that the libraiy can send on the 
subject of Free Trade," and this seems to have 
marked the record for quantity on any one order. 
Not infrequently come requests for anecdotes with 
which to ilhistrate some speech and they are likely 
to specify a dozen or a score ! 

Unceasingly busy in gathering scientific material 
and scientific books from all parts of the world is an 
institution known by name to every American, the 
Smithsonian. And the amazing fact is that the 
founder was an Englishman. And still another 
amazing fact is that although he never saw this 
country, his tomb is here. 

He was a son of the mighty Duke of Northumber- 
land. But as Bernard Shaw expresses it in one of 
his plays, any one may be the son of a duke but 
the important point is, was his mother the duch- 
ess? 

The son of the duchess, in this case, was that 
white-horsed Earl Percy, who led reinforcements 
to the British at Lexington, and who throughout 
the terrible retreat bravely exposed himself and his 
great inheritance of title to the shots of the sharp- 
shooting farmers. He had chosen the white horse 
which so drew the fire of the xVmericans — its color is 
remembered in eastern Massachusetts to this day — 
because of an ancient association of the North- 
umberland family with a white horse. 

The young brother, whose mother was not the 
duchess, felt his position bitterly. He had no right 
to the name of Percv or Northumberland, so in his 

;M0 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

intensity of bitterness he took the name of Smith- 
son, Smith's son, as if he were a nobody. 

In his will, he described himself as *'Son to Hugh, 
Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth heiress of 
the Plungerfords of Studley, and niece of Charles 
the Proud Duke of Somerset" — unusual details to 
make public but showing how he grasped at family 
pride. Through his mother he traced his lineage 
back to Henry VII. and collaterally to Lady Jane 
Grey. ''The best blood of England flows in my 
veins, but this avails me not" he wrote. His 
mother's husband's name was Macie and for many 
years the son, at Oxford and in traveling about 
Europe, used the name of James Lewis Macie. He 
was thirtj^-five years old, this man of mystery, be- 
fore he found that Smithson was a Northumber- 
land name, and assumed it. 

His bent was strongly toward science, his 
specialties being mineralogy and geology. He be- 
came a Fellow of the Royal Society and went from 
country to country, from city to city, Rome, Geneva, 
Paris, Florence, Genoa. He died self-exiled in 
Genoa, a rich man, in 1829. He had had money left 
him from various sources, one of which made him 
think it right to offer a chance of it to a nephew, or 
any child of the nephew, ''legitimate or illegiti- 
mate" as he bitterly expressed it. 

But he had reasons for being sure that the 
nephew would not live and so he wrote the following 
strange boast as he planned the future of his 
fortune ; 

24X 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

**My name shall live in the memory of man when 
the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys 
are extinct and forgotten. ' ' 

It seems almost incredible, but it is literally true, 
that before giving all his money to America he had 
decided to give it to the Royal Society. But being 
a man easily embittered he was angered when the 
Royal Society refused to publish one of his scientific 
papers; hence the sending of his fortune for this 
building on the Washington Mall. 

For he wrote his will, in 1826, declaring. "I be- 
queath the whole of my fortune to the United States 
of America, to found at Washington, under the 
name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establish- 
ment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 
among men.'* 

He died at Genoa in 1829, and almost a million 
dollars became available for the institution iri 
America, much of the money coming as literal gold 
sovereigns. 

Remembering the gloomy old castle of Alnwick, 
the seat of the Northumberlands, one at the same 
time remembers the pseudo-medieval towers and 
windows of the Smithsonian Institution, built in 
1855. The giver of this romantic and remarkable 
bequest to the United States was buried in Genoa. 
But in 1902, the Italian government needed the 
burying-ground and ordered the bodies removed. 
On which President Roosevelt — of course it was 
Roosevelt! — ^had the body brought to America, 
sending a modern man of science, Alexander 

242 



BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 

Graham Bell, to escort the body and thus do honor 
to the man who with his strange bequest did so much 
for American science. 

So the bitterly unhappy Smithson came to the 
United States after all, and his body was placed in 
a tomb of classical shape in a room just by the 
entrance of the Smithsonian Building. 

The Smithsonian shifts its gatherings consider- 
ably, sending many articles to the National Museum, 
which is under its control, and sending many of its 
books to the Library of Congress. Just at present, 
the Smithsonian building, from which important ex- 
peditions are sent throughout the w^orld and which 
is the center of scientific investigation in America, 
has a scholarly but rather empty air, and in fact 
there is only one exhibit of popular interest, the 
curious statue of George Washington that was made 
by Greenough long ago for the Capitol, and which 
has gradually been tucked more and more out of 
sight after being looked upon as an epoch-making 
work. The Smithsonian has other quiet corners 
that might take in a few more of the city's statues 
to advantage! 

Greenough put Washington in a classic chair and 
left his honored form almost unclad above the waist 
— although Washington was always one of tlie most 
particular of men as to his clothes. 'Congress had 
tommissionod Greenough to make a "full-length 
pedestrian'*: and this was the result. 

At first it was proudly placed out in front of the 
Capitol as the greatest triumph of American art; 

243 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

but GreenoHgh's craftsmanship unconsciously seems 
to fit the unfair jibe of Tom Moore on Washington 
himself, lines written years before, when the Irish 
poet was visiting the city and failed to make an 
impression. '^ Nature designed him for a hero's 
mold, but e'er she cast him let the stuff run cold," 
wrote Moore; and somehow this absurd heroic- 
sized statue makes one think of it, for the half-clad 
man sits sandal-shod, stiff and ponderous, with one 
arm pointed aloft in Jove-like heaviness. No 
wonder the peasants of Italy prostrated themselves 
in worship as the statue was slowly dragged along 
the vineyard-bordered roads to the sea-coast by 
many yoke of Tuscan oxen. 




244 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE CHAEM OF THE CITY 



A 



CITY of livable loveli- 
ness, Washington is 
more and more be- 
coming. It 



xg,. -u IS a 
matter of wealth 
and taste showing itself in 
houses, in streets, in parks, 
in trees and shrubs and set- 
ting. 
z^A^^-'j^^-ff^^ There is in this 

^^pi4'^^;^^'!l&''^n^^'^ city a richness of 

greenery even in 
^^^^fe^-,, —winter. It is not 
quite a Southern city 
for the Southerners or 
' ^^ a Northern city for the 

Northerners ; it is between the two with the charac- 
teristics of both, but is more of the South than the 
North. 

There is much of English ivy on houses and 
garden walls: these high brick walls being a strik- 
ing and charming feature, built around many a 
''garden enclosed." This very year that I write 

245 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

two of the oldest walled gardens are being de- 
molished, that of the Decatur house and that of the 
Webster-Corcoran house. Often the garden walls 
are topped with ornamental urns or balls. Often 
there are high iron fences. There is many a hedge 
of box. There is many a clipped box-bush, huge 
and of glorious growth. There is much of privet 
hedge, clipped formally. 

The city is richly planted with trees, the smoke- 
less condition making the trees thrive. They are 
largely maples. There are miles of ginkgos in 
busy thoroughfares, exotic but green and lusty. 
There are streets downtown planted with sycamores 
and others lined with plane trees. There are great 
numbers of glossy-leaved magnolias growing in 
astonishingly small nooks — a tree commonly 
associated with stretches of wild swamp; it is the 
magnolia glauca, not a deciduous magnolia but green 
throughout the winter, and in summer heavy with 
sweetness. The thoroughfares are thick-lined with 
large trees which seem to grow miraculously be- 
tween asphalt and concrete, in small rectangles of 
open ground between pavement and sidewalks, 
where oftentimes their roots form toe-stubbing con- 
tortions. Many a street, notably New Hampsliire 
Avenue, is a long Gothic nave stretching through 
shadowy over-arching tree boughs to a vanishing 
point of distant shaded beauty. 

The city authorities and not the property owners 
see to the curb-side planting and give care to the 
trees, giving avenues of long, over-arching uniform- 

246 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

ity. Romantic wistarias garland up the front of old- 
time houses or hang over the tall brick walls, and 
often the walls are on slightly-terraced land a little 
higher than the sidewalks. In gardens, by porches 
and drooping over stone walls, early comes the 
sweet yellow jasmine* and soon there is a revel of 
crocuses, tulips, the iris and roses. Here and there 
is a garden on top of the wing of a private house, 
with trellis and awnings and formal trees in pots, 
and in one place I noticed a garden enclosed within 
a circle, some three hundred feet in diameter, of 
cedar trees. 

Spring strikes Warshington into a fairyland of 
pale green and pink, and there are years when the 
magnolia shows its blossoms as early as the first 
week in March — not the dark-leaved solemn kind 
that grows so freely over the city, but the deciduous 
kind which blossoms early. Then the forsythia sud- 
denly comes out in a haze of pale yellow over the 
whole town. The tulip beds in the terraces at the 
Capitol suddenly flame into yellow and red. 

Immediate-ly northward of the city is Rock Creek 
Park, ^^dth its miles of sinuous drives, of long levels 
or of curving slopes ; and always beautiful ; in sum- 
mer thick with massed greenery; in w^inter a glory 
of vines and trees. The general effect is of a deep 
and narrow valley. The trees are mostly tall, and 
the effect is in great degree owing to the preponder- 
ance of oak; besides the oaks there are whole hill- 
sides of great beeches, and there are tulip trees. It 
is a great natural woodland, through w^hich lead long 

247 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

drives. Everywhere you are in sight of a rushing 
rock-bedded creek. Eocks border the road, or 
stretch into the stream or jut from the water in 
sheer irregularity or in shelving levels. Always 
beside the long-winding road the mazy creek un- 
ravels. It is an inspired parkway. It is a case of 
beauty unadorned being then adorned the most. 
The well-surfaced roads wind through the ravine as 
if they were part of nature's original achievement. 
Now and then you go splashing through a ford. 
There are miles of bridlepaths laid out apart from 
the drives, threading in and out among the trees 
along the steep banks, through beds iuid banks of 
laurel. 

An easy approach to the park is through the Zoo, 
which is controlled by the Smithsonian; and as you 
drive along you pass examples of zoo treasure, four- 
footed or two, feathered or furred. Prettiest of all 
are the deer, looking at you wonder-eyed among the 
trees. 

The great hill-top section, coming to be generally 
known as Mount Pleasant, is steadily becoming the 
most attractive residential part of the city. There 
is superb building in that district, there is a revel 
of beautiful homes and apartment houses and hotels, 
huge caravansaries. Instead of building with dark 
red brick, which the AVashington of a quarter of a 
century ago used freely, this new part is a region 
of white, and the white promises to remain white 
for the city has little smoke to blacken. And over 
yonder across the deep valley you see the earliest 

248 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

towers of the new cathedral rising white and beauti- 
ful; its location suggesting the English Durham, 
above the stream and the tree-top greenery. 

One apartment house is noticeable for its Lucca 
della Robbia effects inset upon its walls in green 
and buff, in relief above the charming windows. 
There are fine new Georgian mansions in great num- 
ber, of stone or stone and brick, built speculatively 
as is the frequent Washington way, ready for pur- 
chase and immediate use by incoming public officials 
desirous of being settled and able to entertain with- 
out worry or waiting. 

Reaching Mount Pleasant by way of the Avenue 
of the Presidents, Sixteenth Street, past the beauti- 
ful buildings of the lower stretches, such as the 
building of the National Geographical Society which, 
with its seven hundred and fifty-thousand member- 
ship, is the largest educational and scientific society 
in the world, you come up here on the summit of the 
hill to a line of interesting new mansions built to 
be the homes of various embassies. The first is that 
of the French, a large building of stone, very new 
and fresh, of a Frenchy, light gray; a house with 
a high little unadorned mansard above and with 
great French windows below, making a queer-shaped 
corner, a house like a flatiron with its blunt end to 
the street. 

The house of the Polish Legation is large and im- 
pressive without being precisely attractive. The 
Spanish Embassy has a great double house, in a for- 
mal setting of clipped bushes with stone and terra 

249 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

cotta front; of the style of the charming French 
Eenaissance, with little wrought-iron balconies. 
Here, too, is the home of the Cubans, of delightful- 
looking light stone, in the style of the Italian Renais- 
sance, and here too is the Swiss. All of these mar- 
kedly outshine the large, stodgy building of the Eng- 
lish Embassy on Connecticut Avenue. 

Separated from the French Embassy by a great 
open lot, for this is a district newly building up, is a 
house built for the home of Mrs. Marshall Field. 
It is a joyous Venetian palace of stucco and terra 
cotta and marble, and with loggia-like stone bal- 
conies. It is of large size with tile roof and pointed 
windows in groups. 

The street is the American meridian line, origi- 
nally intended to be the line from which longitude 
was to be measured east and west. In the early days 
of our history we thought it would not be patriotic 
to use Greenwich for longitude. Many an old map 
shows this marking of longitude from this line. 
From this point on the hill it is especially noticeable 
that the Avenue of the Presidents leads to where it 
faces the very center of the White House, across the 
interruption of Lafayette Park, and that the Wash- 
ington Monument is not precisely on this line as it 
was intended to be. 

Across the street from the French Embassy is 
Meridian Park, entered by an arched stairway lead- 
ing up to an abutment wall. From the summit one 
gets a splendid panoramic view of the city and its 
surroundings. And an impression is confirmed, 

250 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

which you have before this gained, that there is a 
surprisingly small number of church spires in sight 
for a large city; and you also notice the fortunate 
absence of factory chimneys ; and the great quantity 
of billo\vy waving green of the many trees of the city. 

Thackeray, who knew the world as few men knew 
it, liked Washington and wrote to a friend : * ' The 
place has a Wiesbaden air — there are politics and 
gayeties straggling all over it"; an observation 
which remains true to this day. Others have liked 
to make pleasant remarks regarding ^ ' the feeling of 
elbow room," 'Hhe gentle easy-going social 
customs," ''the easy soft-going manner of the 
natives." And this is one of the times that one is 
reminded that an important charm of the city comes 
from the fact that Americans predominate just as 
the French do in Paris or the Italians in Rome. 

So much gayety is in evidence in Washington! 
Awnings are out from door to curb at one house, 
limousines are gathered about another, caterers' 
vans are unloading huge round table tops and gilt 
chairs at another, flowers and ices are going in far- 
ther on in the street ; ladies coifed and white gloved 
go by in luxury, all bound somewhere ; uniforms and 
gold lace are to be seen — and all this for luncheon, 
then at reception hours; and at dinner hours and 
dancing hours the whole social city seems to be in 
a stir and preliminarily in evidence on the streets. 

It is a city of delightful flower stores, which add 
much to the city's charm. It is a city of much for- 
mal entertaining, and as a result maintains many 

251 



THE BOOK OF. WASHINGTON 

flower shops. One shop specializes in unique set- 
ting for a few flowers, one has a little automobile 
only three feet long, driven by a dwarf in buttons and 
a high hat, who speeds with violets and small bou- 
quets, adored by all the children in the neighborhood. 
One shop has exotic birds free in its windows among 
the flowers. 

Sometimes there is still to be seen what Oliver 
Wendell Holmes loved to call ^'a pole and a pair." 
Sometimes it is an open landau, sometimes it is a 
glistening coupe, sometimes the most correct closed 
carriage, with a quick-stepping pair, and always it 
is a certificate of old aristocracy. Quite as old-timey 
but adding only a touch of quaintness to the city 
streets are the mule-teams, little mules jangling with 
brass-studded harness and driven by negro laborers. 

A great gala feature which is made possible 
through the predominating whiteness of the public 
buildings is the night illumination of the city, when 
the huge dome of the Capitol stands like a fairy 
palace in the surrounding blackness, illumined by in- 
visible searhlights, when the White House shimmers 
with an unearthly whiteness, when even the State, 
War and Navy Building, enormous and misshapen 
as it is, takes on spiritual glory under the powerful 
white lights, and when the Washington shaft be- 
comes a tall white miracle. Then everything in- 
significant, and every thought of insignificance van- 
ishes, and only the dazzling white glory remains. 

The feature of most unique charm in this city is a 
line of important semi-public buildings standing to- 

252 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

gether on the west side of Seventeenth Street, fac- 
ing the Executive Grounds, between the White House 
and the river. Together they make an unrivalled 
group of immense public importance. Each of the 
buildings represents the interests of the American 
people as distinguished from the Government. Each 
of the buildings has its ramifying interest and mem- 
bership in all parts of the country and one of them 
reaches into all Latin-America as well and influences 
every one of its nations. They stand on the principal 
approach to the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall and the 
Parkway. 

Immediately before coming to the first of what 
may be called these altruistic palaces, another large 
and costly building is passed, and it is a pleasure to 
find that its purposes are alike in altruism for it is 
the Corcoran Art Gallery. 

First of these three buildings, all of them new and 
each of them in its own way beautiful, is that of the 
national headquarters of the American Red Cross. 
It is a dignified, wide building of white marble, set 
in lawns and with broad central outside steps lead- 
ing up to a high pillared portico. It is a splendor 
of white simplicity and its fine central stairway leads 
to the second floor where is a great assembly room, 
decorated in white with crimson hangings, the 
familiar colors of the Red Cross. This building was 
one of the busiest in the world during the Great 
War, busy with good deeds. 

A most remarkable feature of its history, is that 
it was finished and dedicated, "In Memory of the 

253 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Heroic Women of the Civil War," the united women 
of the North and of the Confederacy, almost at the 
moment that the great European struggle began, as 
if Fate had a direct hand in its conception and com- 
pletion. 

The next building, the center of the three, is Mem- 
orial Continental Hall, the national headquarters of 
the D. A. E., the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
tion ; or as Geddes the British Ambassador, the first 
Britisher formally received in the building, termed 
them in beginning a recent address in their large 
theater-like meeting hall, 'Hhe *'D. A. R.-lings,"by 
which unexpected burst of humor he won instantan- 
eous and reciprocal affection from the patriotic la- 
dies. 

This beautifully equipped building, semi-public in 
character and on a grand scale, with its direct heri- 
tage from the founders of the nation, was fittingly 
offered and accepted for a meeting place of the re- 
cent Congress of Nations that met to discuss the 
wars and peace of the world. It is a fine thing to 
realize that it is a women's building that was thus 
used. 

Last of the row is a building which instantly at- 
tracts the attention, the interest. It is markedly 
Spanish in effect. Its front is square-lined except 
for the three-arched entrance and has a low-set ef- 
fect, as if of a city gate. Once seen, the building is 
never to be confused with any other— an excellent 
thing in buildings. It is the building of the Pan- 
American Union. 

254 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

It stands only a little higher than the street level, 
and between it and the sidewalk is a paved plaza over 
which is the wide approach, and on either side are 
sunken gardens and marble balustrades of great 
beauty. 

The building represents the union for commercial, 
political and peaceful purposes of the twenty-one re- 
publics of South and North America. It is the result 
of a remarkable movement toward carrying out the 
long-ago enunciated Monroe Doctrine. Thus far 
it has justified its foundation. The money for its 
building was given by Andrew Carnegie, assisted 
by contributions from all the republics. It gives 
a headquarters, at the same time formal and infor- 
mal, to the twenty-one nations of the two Americas, 
in the capital of the greatest. 

From the first it is evident that the building is 
rich in the decorative and unusual. On either side 
of the broad approach is a huge urn-shaped lantern. 
Against the front of the building are great sculptures 
above which are groupings in relief. And above the 
suggested square towers a pair of banners float pic- 
torially. 

Enter through the bronze doors and you are in a 
vestibule corridor of great height which is most ef- 
fectively designed to cross the whole front of the 
building, giving an effect of receiving the world with 
dignity. 

You see from this great corridor that the building 
is a hollow square enclosing an exotic garden, a pa- 
tio, with fountain and richness of tropical palms 

255 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and foliage, with birds, parrots and macaws, with 
orchids and queer, rare flowers, growing in the 
moist heat of the tropics — for the patio is thriftily 
covered in winter with glass, which rolls back, open 
to the blue sky, in the warm summer of Washington. 

The broad green marble steps ascending beside 
the patio, the pillars of black and wliite marble, the 
yellow marble in the garden, the exotic foliage, the 
brilliant plumage of strange birds, the gleam of 
goldfish, unite to give the very feeling of the tropics. 

The meeting hall, the Hall of the Americas, is 
restrained, palatial and superb. The need of as- 
sembly rooms of dignity was keenly felt in Wash- 
ington until the construction of these three build- 
ings magnificently filled the want. 

The great height of the Hall of the Americas 
gives it superb opportunity, superbly taken advan- 
tage of, by fluted pillars along the sides, and by the 
richly ornamented ceiling, and the palatial effect is 
increased by the great stretch of polished floor. 
It is a room which carries within itself the purpose 
of the building, for it emanates a feeling of joy and 
peace and gala celebrations. 

By far the greater number of those who enter this 
building realize how little they know of their Latin- 
American neighbors. Few for example could name 
the entire twenty-one republics : Argentina, Bolivia, 
Brazil, Chili, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dom- 
inican Republic, Ecuador, Guatamala, Hayti, Hon- 
duras, Mexica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, 
Peru, Salvador, the United States, Uruguay and 

256 



THE CHARM OF THE CITY 

Venezuela. It is an amazing list and points out the 
actual far-sightedness of the ordinary-seeming 
Monroe, who first saw the inter-relations of our re- 
public and the rest of the Americas. 

At any rate the average North American expects 
to find a list of nothing but the names of Spaniards 
or Portuguese associated with the history of these 
republics : but here comes a surprise. The building 
is freely decorated with the names and busts and 
pictorial representations of heroes and heroic deeds 
associated \v'ith Pan-American history; and m.th 
the expected names of Portuguese and Spaniards 
one notices such names as Champlain and Dessa- 
lines and L 'Ouverture, those of the highly important 
leader O'Higgins, and of George Washington! 




257 



CHAPTER XVin 



STREETS AND WAYS 



IDEWALKS enlivened 
with officers walking home 
for exercise on Connecti- 
cut Avenue in the latter 
(part of any pleasant 
afternoon are always 
a reminder that this has 
become a military city, 
though strangely, there 
are fifty officers to be 
seen to one private 
soldier. There are no 
barracks centrally lo- 
cated, and marching 
troops are not to be seen. 

It is a customary sight to see famous folk, as in 
mid-forenoon to see an alert, heavy-set man, alone 
but pleasantly on the verge of smiling, gray-gloved, 
with tight-buttoned coat and carrying a cane, walk- 
ing actively cityward; this being Taft, the Chief 
Justice of the United States ; calling to mind the re- 
markable fact, that for the first time in the history 
of the nation, there are one President, Harding, and 

258 




STREETS AND WAYS 

two former Presidents, Taft and Wilson, in formal 
residence in Washington at one time. 

Besides the army officers so in evidence on the 
sidewalks, giving a military air, there is daily the 
frequent droning of army airships, piloted for prac- 
tice above the city. Another familiar military 
street sight is that of Quartermaster's army motors, 
picturesquely canvas-covered over a broad frame, 
delivering purchases of great variety of fruit and 
vegetables and provisions as well as clothing and 
other household supplies, bought at Government 
stores by those in Government service. So familiar 
is this sight that it almost seems as if half the city 
must be supplied with all marketing at the low 
rates of the Government stores. 

There are many motor cars in the broad streets, 
with an unusual proportion of fine, closed types, and 
an unusual proportion, also, of women driving. 

In the best residence sections the pretty girls to 
be seen make a charmingly colorful feature in their 
suits and hats of gray and rose and tawny, of laven- 
der and petunia. They are like flowers ! They are 
pupils in numerous finishing schools, and come here 
from excellent families in all parts of the country in 
addition to the day pupils from the city itself. They 
are slender and trim and young and happy. Some 
wear a blue approaching the horizon blue of French 
officers. Others wear that queer new color, jade 
green. Their youth and their loveliness make a 
marked Washington feature. They lighten and 
brighten the way. 

259 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

A heavy snowstorm is a revel — perhaps because 
the white population is* all of one race and more 
thoroughly amalgamated than in many other Ameri- 
can cities. 

Girls of good class come out in riding breeches 
and neat knickers with tight sweaters or mannish 
coats, come out in bright colors with woolen scarfs, 
to revel and walk on the street-car paths, all that 
are open, for sidewalks are abandoned to deep snow. 
I have seen on a spring Sunday morning a score 
of college girls leaving their clubhouse, all clad in 
knickers and shirt waists for a morning walk. And 
this is the city whose streets were trod by earnest 
Doctor Mary Walker, wearing her plain and much- 
stared-at pantaloons. 

One of the prettiest street scenes is that of a 
large number of gay colored toy balloons, carried by 
prettily dressed children or floating from baby car- 
riages, in the little squares and parks in the spring 
time. All Washington seems to love colored bal- 
loons in the spring, I have seen an old gentleman 
stop and buy them, green and blue and pink, on 
long threads, for a whole group of children. 

A familiar morning sight, and a thoroughly char- 
acteristic one, is that of a fine car driving up to 
a good-class house, followed by a shabby car, which 
takes away the driver of the fine car. At some time 
after dark the mysteriously shabby car again ap- 
pears, stops for a moment, drops a passenger, and 
away goes the fine car followed by the shabby car. 
The mysterious transfers, of one kind and another, 

260 



STREETS AND WAYS 

fascinate and intrigue you — the explanation being 
that the morning delivery and evening return of 
cars are included in garage service and are done in 
this double-car way for economy of time. 

Calling hours and days for entertainment are 
divided, in the season, by various social and politi- 
cal groups. You get an impression of an unusual 
number of engravers, which carries its own intima- 
tion of orders for cards and invitations. 

This is a great dining city. The President, Cabi' 
net and Ambassadors seem to dine out seven 
nights a week. No other city in America has in 
proportion to its population nearly as many formal 
dinners, teas and receptions. Pick up any news- 
paper and you find columns of them. The intermix- 
ture of the best American taste with the taste of a 
great number of Europeans has made for a high 
order of epicureanism. It is really a Court city. 
One resultant feature is the number of fine shops 
which supply exquisite cakes rivalled only by the 
best-known French bakers. One caterer's shop in 
particular maintains traditions as to little French 
**madeleines," and ''langues du chat," and little 
curtesying chocolate ladies, with exquisite bows of 
ribbon for table decoration ; a delight to the eye and 
the taste. There are shops gay with choice candies 
and extravagant and lovely favors. One single fine 
grocery carries a stock of pate de foie gras in the 
earthenware pots of Strassburg, that looks as if 
the geese of the whole place must have been killed 
to fill them; there are thousands of sandwiches 

261 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

made here every week '4n the season," with much 
spreading of *'foie gras." 

A young college woman, familiar with many 
cities, said to me that she had never known of any 
other city with so many pretty places to eat ! And 
these not the famous hotels or great clubs where 
luncheons and diimers go on constantly on a grand 
scale, but the smaller, simpler places of picturesque 
attractiveness and good food. One of these is so 
popular as frequently to have a queue extending far 
out upon the sidewalk. One Sunday evening eighty 
waited in line. 

** Raw-bar" luncheon is a way of expressing oys- 
ters and clams opened to order on the spot. There 
is a sign '* Fruit Cakes! Take one home. She 
wants one!" And you notice that the place calls 
itself a *' gastronomic symphony." 

Much ingenuity has been shown in street signs 
and particularly those of tea-rooms and restau- 
rants. These are partly for the great number of 
strangers and sightseers but mostly for the clerks 
and oflScials in the Government departments. 

There are such intriguing names as the ** Allies 
Inn," ''The Grated Door," the ''Danish Rose," the 
"Lotus Lantern," the "Blue Mill." There are the 
"Fife and Drum Inn," the "Pagoda," "Old St. 
Mark's" for one in an old church, the "Caddy Box" 
for one in a little square house, the "Little Brown 
Teapot" and the "White House Lunch" — where, 
so the story goes, a poor countryman waited for 
hours to see the President come in to lunch ! 

262 



STREETS AND WAYS 

In the fish season, in the humbler sections, a one- 
horse wagon and a plaintive cry of "F-r-e-s-h" and 
then a higher note of "F-i-s-h" suggests the cry 
of "haricots verts" in Paris. There are few 
street cries, however, but in the poorer sections in 
winter **Coal" is plaintively called and sold in 
buckets. 

Covered fruit wagons are a residence street fea- 
ture, with tiers and galleries of brilliantly piled 
fruit. The wagons display amazing Greek names, 
of rolling syllables, and proud charioteers. 

A curious feature of sidewalk vending is the 
selling of white, pale-bleached celery on the shop- 
ping streets. The venders are Greeks and stand 
with great wicker baskets at their feet, full of the 
pale yellow and white of celery, and holding, in 
statuesque quiet, three bunches in proffering out- 
stretched hands. Purchases are made of these 
little celery bunches with as much freedom as if 
they were flowers, by returning shoppers and office 
workers. 

The down-town corners on F Street, on Four- 
teenth, the corners facing the Treasury, and on G 
Street, are bright and gay and spring-like with great 
baskets and panniers of violets and daffodils and 
pale-pink sweet-peas, great luxurious baskets of 
them. No florist shows more lovely colors than 
these open-air vendors offer in spring afternoons: 
flowers at little prices, abundant and lovely, so that 
young and old, rich and poor, go home with spring 
in their hands. 

263 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Pennsylvania Avenue has a peculiar class of 
shoppers. Soldiers, sailors, and strangers abound, 
of course not exclusively, but markedly. 

There are other shopping streets, G, Fourteenth, 
and H Street which has the specialty shops of hats 
and rugs and flowers and gowns, of the city, and a 
similar line of antique shops, decorators, caterers 
and tailors, and silver and art shops, in continuing 
block by block into the residence neighborhoods 
along Connecticut Avenue 

Although this is not looked on as an old city, I 
noticed the other day a store advertising its forty- 
first annual sale and on the same day another an- 
nouncing its ninety-first! The great shopping 
thoroughfare is F Street. It is laid out on a slight 
rise of land above the tidewater level of Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue, and the shopping district extends 
from the Patent Office to the Treasury. It is a 
great street-car thoroughfare and its fine width per- 
mits the wooden platforms at the car stops, the 
"isles of safety^' that are so successful in Washing- 
ton in solving the safety of foot passengers and 
motorist. It is a bright sparkling street with ani- 
mated shops, and without the very high buildings 
that overshadow the pavements of so many busi- 
ness streets in other large cities. 

It will be known and remembered in years to 
come that the proprietor of a quiet, reserved-look- 
ing silversmith and jewelry shop on Pennsylvania 
Avenue; an isolated sort of shop for its class; be- 
came not only the mistress of the White House 

264 



STREETS AND WAYS 

but the only one who, while the wife of the Presi- 
dent, had an international career throughout the 
European countries. 

There is a sign associated with the Presidency 
in a shoe-store window, declaring that alongside of 
it is a chart from which Abraham Lincoln's shoes 
were made by this firm; and you are interested 
in this "floor plan" of the President, and to see 
that his feet were long and narrow and his boots 
rather square-toed. But not often is so personal 
a note talien in advertising or signs, and it is the 
exception to have a painter announce himself as the 
one who keeps the "White House white." 

One firm announces as its delightful fixed pur- 
pose : " To outdo, in what we do, all we did before ! ' ' 
— which certainly has a convincing sound. 

The street cars show some interesting publicity 
work as, when a tigress has a family of four at the 
Zoo, there are posters in yellow and black of the 
family of five, calling attention to the free show, 
placed plainly in the cars and telling which car to 
take. The Easter Monday egg-rolling is similarly 
called attention to. And this with the idea that 
such delightful free shows need only to be called 
to public attention, the point seeming to be that the 
trolley users are not worn and weary factory hands 
but intelligent Washingtonians with time for amuse- 
ment: and "though they are on pleasure bent they 
have a frugal mind." 

Street car tickets are metal, are thin and small 
and are always spoken of as "tokens " a queer, 

265 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

pious-sounding word to most strangers. Each 
token has an openwork **W" in the center, and a 
customary way, with men and women alike, is to 
thread the elusive tokens on a safety pin, with 
which they begin to fidget as they ascend the back 
steps of a car. 

Mortuary poetry is a strange feature of the news- 
paper advertising columns. One year after a death, 
two years, even a dozen years or more, you will 
see strings of memorial verse, eulogistic and regret- 
ful — and paid for! You will see the headings, ''His 
aunt and grandmother," ''His pal and brother 
Frank," "In sad remembrance of our loving Mary." 
There are separate verses, a year after the death, 
from mother and father, the sister, two brothers, 
each with separate stanza, an aunt and her friends 
each with theirs! Another widow "drops into 
verse" to say that her continued grief is for her 
husband, William John, but that he was known as 
* ' Jim Bilkins ' ' : and she adds : 



"The rose that is the fairest and sweetest 
Is the one that is killed by the frost." 

The newspapers also have an odd way of using 
cryptic abbreviations in their real estate advertise- 
ments, such as "ami," " h w h, " " v 1 h, " " 1 h k " ; 
thus making advertising a house or an apartment 
for rent, a matter of intimacy among those who 
know the patter of the agent. 

266 



STREETS AND WAYS 

Add to this the letters that are names for streets 
and the repetition of N.W., N.E., S.W., and the fre- 
quent use of ^^Eye" for 'T' and ^'You" for ''U," 
and there is a sufiSciency of argot. And there are 
many heavy, covered tinicks on the streets showing 
nothing but the great letters, **U S Q M C!" 

AVasliington is really a wonderful city for pedi- 
ments on public buildings and im-pediments on the 
public sidewalks. Walk unguardedly on Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue in passing the Wliite House and you 
will run into beautiful elm trees growing out of the 
sidewalk! They are fine trees and no one wishes 
them ill but they are certainly queerly placed. On 
Connecticut Avenue, unless you are watchful, you 
walk into iron pipes, ten feet high, set for the 
support of awnings. At other points there is iron 
fencing reaching from the shop fronts, a distance 
of sixteen feet straight out — some of these indicate 
a need of adjustment of side-walk level and are 
the result of building-line laws and quarrels, but 
are a little hard on pedestrians. You find low walls, 
looped chains and posts, and thousands of croquet- 
like hoops, that protect the grass corners and trip 
the incautious. Washington might follow Glasgow 
in its frequent street-warnings, ''Gang Warily." 

Dogs are common — but are not of common breed ! 
A small fluffy white kind is frequently seen. It 
might be termed "the old ladies' favorite." All 
cities that have homes and children have dogs, but 
Washington has them in happy abundance ! There 

267 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

are great numbers of little dogs, or as a Wash- 
ingtonian puts it, not so many watch dogs as wrist- 
watch dogs! 

The dogs are extremely well-cared for; all look 
like household autocrats or favorites and go in the 
front door. The cats, on the contrary, are roam- 
ing, uncanny, furtive, dim-shadowed in the dusk, 
seekers after alleys and basement windows. You 
do not see live chickens except some prominently 
scratching between the Capitol and the Union Sta- 
tion, but they must be surreptitiously kept in other 
parts of town for they crow in the quiet of the early 
morning — a startling sound in city streets. 

When you hear of tliis as ''the city of magnificent 
distances," it seems grandiloquent, until you learn 
that the phrase was made by the Minister from little 
Portugal, a "Portygee" as they would call him on 
Cape Cod, who came from a capital which one day 
had a crack open in its main street, down which half 
the population disappeared ! 

For a city only a century and a quarter old, a 
surprising number of ghost stories have already 
begun to accumulate. This may be partially owing 
to the number of large, closed mansions in the city, 
gloomy and shuttered, and to the presence of so 
many colored people, to whom *'ghoses" and 
"hants" are veritable. 

The ghost story of the bells of the Octagon has 
already been told, and there is a still better story 
connected with a locality close by, where the Pan- 

268 



STREETS AND WAYS 

American building stands. Burns, the old Scotch- 
man, who before the Capital was established here, 
owned a great tract in the vicinity of the future 
"V^Hiite House, became enormously rich and built a 
great mansion between the White House and the 
Potomac; and on the night of each anniversary of 
his death, according to the story, his six white 
horses used to gallop at midnight around the house. 
A variant had it that the galloping horses were head- 
less! But the house and the ghostly horses long 
ago disappeared, and the queer story alone remains. 

The early books of Washington reminiscences tell 
of a wishing tree in Lafayette Square, an old beech 
under which lovers made wishes that always came 
true. Lovers still sit and wish — and perhaps the 
fact that the identity of the particular beech has 
been lost will explain why nowadays the wishes do 
not always come true. 

Old Kalorama, behind its horseshoe of box bushes, 
offers an ancient tale. After the death of the poet 
Barlow, his widow returned here to Kalorama, and 
in time a friendship arose between her and a Doctor 
Ezekiel Bull. They became engaged, but the family 
of Mrs. Barlow Avere averse to losing her property 
— she had no children — and bitterly opposed any 
marriage. The lovers, however, were persistent 
and several times set a wedding day, only to have 
postponement through interference. On the last 
of such days the Doctor came to the door, the old 
lunette-topped door, still there, in a carriage with 

269 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

a minister, at the appointed hour, but was made to 
believe that Mrs. Barlow would not see him and 
would not be married. 

Meanwhile, sitting in her room in her bridal 
attire, she was made to believe that Doctor Bull had 
come to the door and announced that he would 
not marry her. She lost her mind, and waited and 
waited in vain at the front window for her lover, 
and in a short time died. He returned to his home 
in Charlestown, in what is now West Virginia — it 
is from this old town that the story comes to me — 
and frequently, at night, a figure all in white silently 
''fluttered" and wept at his window. Then he died, 
and for years it was believed that he and his coach 
came driving up and that he knocked long and pa- 
tiently at the door — ghost looking for ghost at old 
Kalorama. 




270 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE POTOMAC 



WILD mass of rushing water, 

tumbling, pouring in huge 

quantity, tearing between 

and over mighty granite 

rocks, worn round by 

ages of falling stream 

— and you are at the 

Great Falls of the Potomac, 

astonished, amazed at their 

greatness, at their 

wildness, their state of 

nature and beauty. 

You are less than six- 

— =■_;?;» teen miles from the 

Capitol but you might 

be hundreds of miles away, judging from the 

undisturbed wildness of it all. 

You have come by a beautiful road which leaves 
Georgetown crowded in between the picturesque 
canal and the hillside. The old canal streams 
drowsily on. It is all amazingly picturesque. The 
towpath goes beside little old cabins, crowded among 
trees, and there is a fringe of old-time life beside 
the road, pressed down by the steep, rising hillside. 
In a short distance you pass little shops and cabins 

271 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and a smithy, and then the ancient picturesque canal 
swings to the left and the road takes you through 
a great loneliness, with masses of honey-suckle, with 
scattered pines, filled closely and charmingly in. 
But the houses — they are few — are small and poor 
with bare-swept grassless dooryards. The road is 
called the Conduit Road from the fact that it runs 
either on the acqueduct or alongside of it, and passes 
the Washington reservoirs with their little old stone 
temple-like buildings, with the roofs like pocket- 
edition pantheons ! 

Now and then buzzards from Virginia go floating 
overhead, sinister, black and ragged. 

The broad Potomac, here a live and rippling 
stream, stretches for miles in view of this road, and 
the Virginia hills are banked on the farther side, 
thick with trees. There is the rushing water of a 
dam, and below the road the old canal keeps a 
green and sleepy way beside the river. There is a 
trolley park out here and many signs of campers, 
but long stretches are as solitary as they were when 
Daniel Webster followed the stream for fish and 
found rest and pleasure in whipping the stream. 

Cabin John Bridge, a long narrow high-level 
bridge of gray stone, with red stone parapets, carry- 
ing the acqueduct and the Conduit Road over it, 
flings its mighty span of one great arch above the 
creek that ripples far below, in a ravine that is 
close grown with tall trees, tulips and sycamores, so 
that on Cabin John Bridge you stand among the 
tree-tops. 

272 



THE POTOMAC 

Cabin John Bridge had cut upon it the name of 
Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War, but the name 
was chipped off soon after it was put on, the bridge 
having been built at the beginning of the Civil War. 
It has the largest single stone arch in America, two 
hundred and twenty feet in length. It was made 
for the purpose of carrying the Washington Acque- 
duct over the deep ravine of Cabin John Creek. 
The Harlem High Bridge, also an early acqueduct 
bridge, was built to carry the Croton water into 
New York and in contrast consists of thirteen 
granite arches. When Theodore Eoosevelt was 
President, he had the name of Jefferson Davis re- 
placed upon Cabin John Bridge. ' 

Beyond the bridge the rocks rise higher, with 
laurel thickets and mlder places, and there are 
cabins with outside cliimneys and with lean "hound 
dogs" around the doors. 

The Anglers' Association of Washington has a 
lodge near the river, and here the road goes inland, 
leaving the Potomac, through heavy woodland still 
more wild and after several miles descends by a 
long and sinuous hill to the Palls. 

Here stand a few buildings, notably an old-time 
house of brick, large and well-proportioned, with 
picturesque windows, broad-gabled, long-fronted, 
an old waterside tavern kept up as a club-house. 
It was here at the Falls that Henry Clay fought 
one of his duels, this time with the erratic John 
Randolph. John had called Henry a black-leg, 
which colorful phrase was strong enough to merit 

273 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

attention between fiery Southern gentlemen in 1826. 
Clay fired at Randolph and Randolph fired at ran- 
dom! remarking, *'I cannot fire at you, Mr. Clay" — 
certainly an amende after his dark epithet; and 
they fell on each other's necks and wept. 

George Washington, here surveying and engi- 
neering the old canal around the Falls, Daniel Web- 
ster in solitary trout fishing. Clay and Randolph 
weeping on each other's necks, — no other human 
associations are needed in the vicinity of these great 
lonely Falls of the Potomac. 

You quickly lose sight of all signs of building or 
civilization. A path leads to a long and swaying, 
swinging footbridge, and as you cross the channel, 
this being a minor channel of the river, scattered 
thick with huge blocks of granite around which the 
water rushes, you see far off at the right the main 
stream of the forest-bordered river, bending into 
misty indistinctness. You reach an island of great 
masses of granite with sufficient sand deposit in the 
rock hollows to grow thickets and bowers of wild 
grapes, with undergrowth in which the prickly cac- 
tus creeps. 

A long walk over the granite unevenesses and 
you come to the farther channel and the Great Falls, 
and before you are masses of water crowding, tum- 
bling, falling, in overwhelming volume. The trees 
and hills and water unite in tremendous grandeur 
with mist clouds rising from the Falls — and this less 
than sixteen miles from the Capitol! A present- 
day dream-plan is to turn tliis region into a park 

274 



THE POTOMAC 

reservation ; and a sinister plan is to utilize all the 
power for manufacturing. As we turn away, a 
wonderful purple coloring hangs over the eastward 
hills. 

Immediately below Georgetown, the Potomac as- 
sumes quiet and stately beauty; its turbulent char- 
acter is gone; it is now a tidewater stream. Sur- 
mounting a great commanding hillside opposite the 
city of Washington, on the Virginia side, is Arling- 
ton, centering about the old pillar-fronted mansion, 
built a century and a quarter ago by Washington's 
adopted son, G. W. P. Custis. It offers a notable 
view, standing as it does two hundred feet above 
the river. The heavily pillared house is fronted 
like a Doric temple, and is a comfortable mansion 
house masked thus imposingly. This front was 
copied from the Temple of Theseus at Athens. It 
was the proper thing for Virginia gentlemen to 
study the classic, and build accordingly, at this 
period. 

All Arlington is national property and it has 
become a noble memorial, a distinguished and hon- 
ored place of burial, for soldiers of all our wars. 
The word '^ Arlington" has come to have a national 
meaning, as the ''Abbey" has in England, as a place 
of solemn sepulture, than which no one could have 
liigher. Placed here and there about the great 
park-like grounds are bronze tablets, each with a 
stanza of "The Bivouac of the Dead." Colonel 
O'Hara wrote the soldierly poem for a war monu- 
ment in Frankfort to the memory of Kentuckians 

275 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

killed in the Mexican War, but the verses are stir- 
ring for this vastly wider field: 

"On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 

The bivouac of the dead." 

Not only private soldiers are buried in Arlington 
but an increasing number of important officers. 
Any and all, djing in service, of officers or men, have 
the right to be buried here. And already there are 
uncountable thousands of the low-set stones that 
have been adopted. The little white stones, uni- 
form in distance one from- the other, are marshalled 
like regiments for review upon the green grass and 
under the solemn old trees. 

The place marks the turning of the tide of an 
important fortune; for Arlington was the home of 
Robert E. Lee, who was son-in-law of the early 
owner, George Washington Parke Custis, He left 
Arlington at its loveliest, never to return, on a 
spring day in 1861, when all the magnolias and the 
jasmine were in blossom. 

It is rolling park land, rich in trees, but con- 
stantly the view stretches off in miles of beauty 
with the Potomac curving and gleaming in lengthen- 
ing glory and the great monuments and white 
palaces of Washington, the Lincoln Memorial, the 
tall shaft of the Washington Monument, the peace- 
ful White House, the great-domed Capitol on its 
hill, all sliimmering in sunlit marble. 

276 



■ 3| 




THE POTOMAC 

In front of the mansion of Arlington is perhaps 
the best placed grave in America, that of the un- 
fortunate L 'Enfant, marked by a stone like a table, 
with his city plan upon it. His body long lay in 
obscurity in a Maryland farm but was brought here 
by architects, his m'odern confreres, who placed the 
grave in splendid sight of the noble city of his 
dreams. 

All the slopes of Arlington down to the Potomac 
are sentineled by tall Virginia cedars, cypress-like 
in their beauty. 

The old house is of ochre-yellow stucco. The 
white pillars are unusually heavy. The interior of 
the house is gaunt and bare, showing what might 
have happened to Mount Vernon had it been made 
a Government show place, instead of being in charge 
of patriotic women. 

A long distance from the mansion and on the 
same commanding height overlooking the river and 
the city, there has been built one of the noblest 
structures in the world. It is a memorial amphi- 
theater, open to the sky, circular in shape, and with 
white marble benches in lines within an enclosing 
columned arcade, with fifty-six circling columns. 

The architects were Carrere and Hastings. The 
spotless whiteness of the interior, the magnitude of 
it, the blue sky directly overhead, the fine simplicity 
of the encircling columns, the tall gloomv green 
cedars seen through the arches, the dignity, the 
grandeur, the impressiveness, the lonely beauty— 
this and the Lincoln Memorial, in full view across 

277 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

the Potomac, are unequaled among modern struc- 
tures. Shall the time ever come when there shall 
be acknowledging reference to the Seven Wonders 
of Washington? Or may it now be called the Amer- 
ican Eenaissance ! 

Below the city where the Potomac and Anacostia 
join, is the War College, the highest school in the 
course of military education of the United States 
Army. Only officers of prominent rank a»re ad- 
mitted and the arts of war are taught in a sort of 
post-graduate West Point; or, as it might be ex- 
pressed, it is a sort of Johns Hopkins of death. 

Below the War College, on the Potomac, the great 
tragedy took place on the gunboat ''Princeton," 
when the explosion of a big new gun killed members 
of the Cabinet and other visitors, including the 
father of Julia Gardiner, who shortly afterwards 
became the wife of President Tyler, who barely 
escaped being killed himself. Stockton, in command 
of this gunboat named the ''Princeton" after the 
town which loved him and which he loved, was 
among the wounded. 

The college town of Princeton has few but grim 
associations with the city of Washington. Not 
only was there this explosion, but the one man of 
great ability and public place, an early Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, in regard to whom no 
stories are told, no memories brought up, in Wash- 
ington, was Aaron Burr, son of the first President 
of Princeton; and a recent President of the United 

278 



THE POTOMAC 

States, who taught Americans to accept a rule of 
secret arbitrariness, and who was stricken in the 
height of his power, had been a President of Prince- 
ton. 

The War College is on low-lying land, almost on 
the river level, and there are widespreading views 
of water and hills and trees. Close by, across an 
inlet, is Potomac Park, with its remarkable cherry- 
bordered drive. Over yonder is Arlington. Near 
at hand, across the water, is the principal aviation 
field of the army and the air is vibrant with the 
sound of planes. 

The grounds of the War College and Washing- 
ton Barracks are entered through a sentineled gate, 
and the College building is beyond a green parallelo- 
gram. It is a great brick building at the end of the 
open esplanade and is fronted by a wide terrace. 
It is a sort of huge classic, hall-like building, domin- 
ated at the ends by two very large and quarrelsome- 
looking stone eagles. 

Stanford White was the architect, and it is said 
that after he designed the college, he was asked if 
he would not design some homes for the officers, 
whereupon, limited as to expenditure though he 
was, he built the most attractive homes offered to 
officers at any Government post. They back toward 
the water and Potomac Park. They are square, of 
brick, with roofs of heavy slate, with lovely white 
pillared porticoes, wrought-iron rails, brass knobs, 
high roofs, huge chimneys and dormers. They are 

279 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

galleried and trellised and use the river views and 
there are also lovely river glimpses between the 
houses, seen in passing. 

Along the river front of the Potomac has been 
created a park of enchanted beauty; essentially a 
motor park. Until recent years, it was a region of 
glooming flats. It now includes one thousand acres 
of reclaimed marsh land which has been developed 
with wonderful effectiveness. 

Until this park was built the river was practically 
unapproachable to modern Washingtonians, and its 
beauties were unseen. The river was important to 
the early city. Eobert Morris, the great financier, 
tried vainly to arouse interest in a three-mile 
"street" along the waterfront. The White House 
had a river-face with grounds to the water's edge. 
Such old houses as remain show that they were built 
with regard to river views. The Octagon turned a 
shoulder to the White House to face an upstream 
view. The old Law house was built on a high base- 
ment that its windows might command the water. 

Potomac Park is a long, flat promontory which has 
the effect of being an island in the river. It is cir- 
cummured within a wonderful drive, picturesque 
with large black-boled willows and bordered and 
bowered by what is known as the flowering cherry 
of Japan. 

Mrs. Taft, a month after going to the White 
House to live, had eighty Japanese cherry trees 
bought and planted here, because she had seen and 

280 



THE POTOMAC 

admired them when in the East ; and hearing of this 
compliment to his country, a Japanese resident of 
New York offered two thousand of the trees as a 
gift. They were what may be called inhospitably 
received, however, for they were condemned as in- 
fected and all were destroyed. With a patience 
proverbial to the East, the city of Tokio then gave 
three thousand, and the waterside is now an ex- 
quisite, poetic dream of beauty in the springtime 
in delicate ethereal color, peculiarly suited to the 
colors of Washington in the spring, to the blue sky, 
the river, the delicate green of the willows and 
grass and the white marble of the city's monu- 
ments and memorials. 

The grass in the spring-time, pale, lovely, deli- 
cate, is green beyond belief in the long field that 
forms the center of the park, and all one side is a 
great garden of perennials, of iris and masses of 
later flowers. But it is the bowers of pink cherry 
blossoms on the dwarf gray-boled trees, planted in 
irregular groups, not in stiff precision, that is the 
famous and the lovely setting of Potomac Park. 
These cherries are not fruit-bearing trees, and are 
the flower we know as ''hawthorn" on the porcelain 
jars of the Orient. They are really a sort of plum 
and are botanically ''prunus pseudo cerasus"; but 
the "cherry" they are, in all usage. 

There are several interesting and broad-spirited 
uses to which this park land has been put. A long 
stretch down the center is given over for the use of 

281 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

a great number of citizens who wish to grow their 
own vegetable gardens. The land is neatly 
ploughed and apportioned in little patches. It is 
far from being for the poor, for most of the garden- 
ers arrive in their own motors and fall to, with 
diligent rake and hoe. There is a public polo field, 
with bounds tightly set for the balls. There is a 
great public golf links used under the simplest rules, 
and with exceptionally good grass. And there is a 
public camping ground where motor tourists may 
stay with their cars all night ; this being in particu- 
lar a development from the great number of cara- 
van motors going to or coming from Florida. 

The Potomac is still a quiet stream ; it is probable 
that *'all quiet along the Potomac!" will be re- 
tained in general memory for many a generation 
to come : 

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ; 

Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, 
Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming." 

From the bridge which leads from the park to 
the Virginia shore, and from the farther side of 
the bridge after nightfall, is a sprinkling of hun- 
dreds of lights with beautiful effect; it is a fairy- 
land, with every light striking its deep reflection 
down into the water, and with the firefly lights of 
motor cars flitting and passing. 

The park is a region for fishermen, especially 

282 



THE POTOMAC 

on Sunday mornings. They fish from the walled 
embankment along the Tidal Basin, mostly solitary 
and silent, instead of in groups, and in fact giving 
an effect decidedly French; "soaking an indeterm- 
inate bait in the large, indifferent stream." 

John Quincy Adams, when President, loved to 
walk and ride and row and swim; and one morning 
early, he set out to cross the Potomac from the 
White House grounds. His son John and his stew- 
ard Antoine were with him, and they all took off 
their clothes in the boat intending to dive into the 
river. Suddenly came a gust of wind — tidewater 
streams are subject to sudden capfuls of wind — 
and the three men had to swim for the farther shore 
with practically every garment lost in the river. 
The steward, with barely enough clothes for de- 
cency, went back alone to the White House, while 
the President of the United States waited in gnat- 
bitten misery in the bushes, where he sat hidden 
for two hours ; which makes a Potomac-side picture 
that adds to the gayety of nations. 

But to President Adams, firm precisionist that 
he was, the occurrence was excessively mortifying. 
It held no humor for him! And that evening he 
wrote of it in his diary, as a ''humiliating lesson." 

One wonders if this may have given inspiration 
to the saturnine Carlyle for what is perhaps his 
most widely remembered writing, for he wrote 
within a year or two after this Presidential nudity, 
the early portion of "Sartor Resartus," in which 

283 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

he set down his weird imagination of a ruler sud- 
denly becoming, when his garments vanished, 
naught but a fantastically carved forked radish! 




284 



CHAPTER XX 



GEOEGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 




HE name of Georgetown 
arouses pleasurably vague 
f^ impressions. The place, a 
J well established little town 
) with an extremely good 
opinion of itself, was tak- 
en in as part of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia when 
the District was estab- 
lished. And its name 
had not come from 
any association with either George Washington 
or George the Third but from George the Second — 
which somehow adds to the picturesque feeling of it. 
Long ago, in 1789, Georgetown College was es- 
tablished and it is still interestingly existent and 
active, the oldest and largest Jesuit college in the 
country. 

There was a direct road into Georgetown from 
Washington and the White House from early days ; 
it was Pennsylvania Avenue, and high-dormered 
houses were built, shoulder to shoulder, along the 
thoroughfare in expectation of the coming city popu- 
lation. Most noticeable of those now standing are 

285 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

seven in a tight row in the block of the twenty-one 
hundreds; very close building for early days and 
a woodsy location such as this neighborhood then 
was. 

From the first you notice that there are piquant 
places in old Georgetown. Down there on that lower 
level, alongside of the ancient canal, are some small 
ruins which you find are those of a foundry, once 
operated by a man named Foxhall. These little 
foundry ruins at which you are looking and which 
intangibly appeal as something of quite unusual 
quality, are said to have had a vital connection 
with one of the most interesting naval battles of the 
world's history. 

While Oliver Hazard Perry was triumphantly 
doing the impossible in building a fleet on the then 
wilderness-enclosed shores of Lake Erie, under the 
eyes of the British squadron which sailed unsus- 
pectingly up and down the lake, the cannon and 
cannon balls were made at this Foxhall foundry in 
Georgetown and from here were packed over the 
hundreds of miles of forest trails. 

The Capital and the entire nation thrilled with 
pride in an intense degree which cities or nations 
have seldom known, when a native of the District 
of Columbia, Lieutenant Dulaney Forrest, in Sep- 
tember of 1813, appeared before Congress, and laid 
at their feet the captured battle flags of an entire 
British squadron, sunk or captured by Oliver Hazard 
Perry with Georgetown cannon and balls. Never 
before had an entire English fleet or squadron been 

286 



GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 

captured. Ask for these flags where they ought to 
be nobly preserved and you will be told, as I was, 
that they have been allowed to fall to decay through 
neglect. 

When, not long aftenvard, the British seized 
Washington and began their burning the news was 
carried to Foxhall that they had promised them- 
selves the special joy of destroying his establish- 
ment on account of his activity in cannon-making; 
but the great rain storm in which the British began 
their hurried retreat, saved the property of Foxhall 
who, in thankfulness, built over in Washington the 
original church of the curious name of ''Foundry" 
— a church society prominent to this day. 

The spot is still proudly pointed out where 
Francis Scott Key lived, the author of ''The Star- 
Spangled Banner," near where the great new 
bridge, named as a memorial in his honor, spans 
the Potomac. Key is comparable only to R\)get de 
Lisle in that he expressed like de Lisle a sudden 
ardent national fervor, permanently accepted by his 
country as a song from the nation's heart. 

A relative of Key, Doctor William Beanes, lived 
in Upper Marlborough and was so angered by the 
misconduct of the British when they marched 
through on their way to burn Washington that he 
headed a few citizens in locking up the rear-guard 
of the invaders: w^hich pointed out his bravery 
rather more than it did his judgment. When the 
British came hurrying back they unlocked their 
imprisoned comrades and carried the enterprising 

287 



THE BOOK OF AVASHINGTON 

old doctor with them as a prisoner, to the tieet near 
BtUtimore. 

Key, man of prominence as he was. hurried to 
the British Admiral to ask for the parole of his 
kinsman. Reaching the tleet just as the bon\bard- 
ment of Fort McHenry was to take place. Key was 
held until the fight should U^ over. In this emo- 
tional condition he watched the bombardment and 
watched darkness settle over the fort; and at the 
very earliest touch of dawn next morning he eagerly 
scanned the water, catching sight with indescribable 
happiness of the tlag still doatiug over the fort. 
He was so thrilled by it, so overpowered by poetic 
joy, that he seized some paper and in a fine frenzy 
of poetic emotion wrote what has become the na- 
tional anthem of America. 

It is a most remarkable fact that little George- 
town was the home of the authors of two immortal 
American songs: *'The Star-Spangled Banner," 
and "Home, Sweet Home!" This alone ought to 
make Georgetown a place of pilgrimage, and the 
most natural road of pilgrimage is over the new 
bridge with the great bison on it, and on to the old 
Oak Hill Cemetery on the height. H is a romantic 
old graveyard, now close-tilled, markedly a place 
of deep ravines and tall trees and steep banks. 
It is a great sanctuary for birds, and I remember 
watching the pretty sight, one warm spring day, of 
two tlickers, high-holes, building their nest in an 
old oak, immediately over John Howard Payne's 

•JSS 



GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 

grave, and almost seeming to talk as in their ex- 
citement they made a succession of cries. 

Payne died in Northern Africa while located there 
as an American consul. It is pathetic to associate 
such feeling lines as " 'Mid pleasures and palaces 
though we may roam," with the death of the author 
in such a remote spot — for Payne was buried near 
the ruined palaces of ancient Carthage. 

But a Georgetown-born man, William H. Cor- 
coran, who seems to have been unsurpassed in 
thinking of fine things to do to pleasure his fellow- 
men, had the body of his townsman, John Howard 
Payne, brought back to his home-town and to this 
quiet graveyard, where in time Corcoran himself 
was to sleep. A simple monument marks the grave, 
bearing a bust of Payne, showing him as a gentle 
and pleasant-faced man, with slender moustache 
and a tuft on his lower lip. Edwin M. Stanton, the 
restless-spirited Secretary of War, is buried near 
by, beneath an obelisk that is neither too high for 
modesty nor too low for fame. And the over-am- 
bitious Salmon P. Chase, a disappointed man, is 
also buried here. 

On M Street, the business thoroughfare, at 3049, 
is a quaint old yellow-washed tavern, very small, 
with an outside stair up to a gallery. It must have 
overlooked the river in early days, on the bank- 
side above the ferry. This was a meeting place for 
the planning of the City of Washington by Wash- 
ington and Jefferson and L 'Enfant. 

289 



THE BOOK OF WASHHSPGTON 

There is a section both poor and picturesque, for 
country barter and trade, and you see shops with 
mule whips, fully a score on one stem, and you see 
truck farmers who with their creaky, worn-out little 
wagons bring produce into the city. There are also 
banks and larger stores in Georgetown and it is by 
no means altogether jocularity which set up at a 
trolley transfer point: "Transfer for Georgetown's 
most important suburb, Washington. But first do 
your shopping in Georgetown." Georgetown is 
really and officially part of Washington but the two 
places are often referred to as if they were still 
separate. 

Alexander Graham Bell has lived and .experi- 
mented much in Georgetown. That he began life as 
a teacher of the deaf and dumb helps to show how 
the telephone idea came to him. He has made his 
home on Thirty-Fifth Street, a quiet house in a 
quiet hill neighborhood, across the street from the 
famous Convent of the Visitation. His home, on 
a terrace, is an unpretentious three-story house of 
chocolate-colored stucco, with a black iron, fussy, 
old-time porch. Across narrow Volta Place which 
runs beside the house, is a little yellow brick library- 
like building, new perched and of classic design, 
made for the dissemination of knowledge in regard 
to the deaf and for actively aiding them. 

There is a considerable amount of old-fashioned 
conservative living in Georgetown. A positively 
beautiful eighteenth-century house is Tudor Place, 
standing in the midst of a lawn of enormous extent 

290 



GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 

on Q Street. The mansion rises in tawny beauty, a 
great, long-fronted house, squarish and hip-roofed, 
with a center and long balancing wings. It was 
one of the great houses of its time and is now one 
of the notable survivals of the architecture of the 
early days of our country. At the front door is a 
striking semi-circular portico, with four tall pillars 
and two pilasters, with a wonderful roof, a half- 
dome. Tall French windows, curve-topped, are at 
either side of the pillars of the portico. The first 
mistress of this house was the little Martha, who 
was given by Lafayette as a namesake of her grand- 
mother, Mrs. Washington, the little inlaid dressing 
table of king and tulip wood, which still d'elights us 
at the National Museum. 

This was one of the remarkable homes of that 
building family, the Custises. General Robert E. 
Lee became by marriage a connection, and it is re- 
membered that he visited here, not far from his lost 
Arlington, after the close of the Civil War. 

The three sisters and a brother of the Custis 
family built four notable houses, still standing 
within an afternoon's ride of each other in the 
neighborhood of Washington, Martha Parke Custis, 
Mrs. Peters, here at Tudor Place; Eleanor, "Nel- 
lie," Mrs. Lewis at Woodlawn between Alexandria 
and Pohick ; Eliza, Mrs. Law, by the riverside near 
the War College; and George Washington Parke 
Custis, at Arlington on the Virginia heights look- 
ing over at Washington. Surely a great building 
family! — and a remarkable thing that these four 

291 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

houses have survived wars and fires and demoli- 
tions. 

Facing Tudor Place, far off on the other side of 
Q Street, is another fine old town-house. It is of 
dull red brick ; it is large and dormered and winged ; 
and the two survivals of long ago are so beautiful 
that each is a foil to the other. 

Northward from Georgetown, and still to be 
reached by trolley through that town, but by motor 
driving directly out either Connecticut Avenue 
or Massachusetts, the great new Gothic cathedral 
of SS. Peter and Paul is rising. It has already 
made a notable start in building but will still re- 
quire many millions of dollars and years of time 
to complete. 

The portions already standing in white and 
crocketed beauty above the wooded height of Mount 
St. Alban, are admirably and impressively to be 
seen from the arched and lion-guarded Connecticut 
Avenue Bridge, over Rock Creek Valley; and when 
the nave of the cathedral is completed and the struc- 
ture shall stand in its full glory of great square cen- 
tral tower, with two Westminster-like towers at the 
front, and a general exterior beauty of gray color 
almost white, with pinnacles, flying buttresses and 
traceried windows, all in pure pointed Gothic, it 
will be one of the notable Gothic cathedrals of the 
world. It ranks in length with the cathedrals of 
Canterbury and York and suggests mighty Durham 
in its beauty of tree-clad hill location. 

292 



GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 

The apse, the only part thus far rising prcnnin- 
ently, has a very successful churchly air. Beneath 
the altar is a crypt with heavy pillars and groined 
arches; and already the tomb is here of the first 
bishop of "Washington — Bishop Satterlee. On the 
tomb lies at full length, carved in fine alabaster, the 
churchly figure of the bishop, looking like a carved 
recumbent figure of feudal times, and with little 
angels at his feet. The distinctly modern mous- 
tache is the only detraction from the Crusader-time 
effect. 

The Cathedral has already had some unusual 
gifts. For the construction of the pulpit, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury sent stones from Canterbury 
Cathedral. From the ruins of remote and ancient 
Glastonbury, stones were sent for the making of the 
bishop's cathedra, his formal seat; the Glastonbury 
stones having been chosen because that ruined abbey 
bore the name, as does this cathedral at Washing- 
ton, of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The high 
altar is made from the ledge of rock in which 
Christ's sepulcher was hewn. 

Upon this cedar-dotted height, are the beginnings 
of a cathedral close of ecclesiastical buildings, with, 
richly endowed schools for boys and girls. On a 
height of equal prominence some distance south- 
ward, stand the buildings of the Naval Observatory, 
which mark the site of the camp of the army of 
Braddock and Washington with their fated expe- 
ditionary force. 

293 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Confronted with the idea of writing of the sub- 
urbs of Washington one is likely to feel like the 
man who was offered Punch's advice to those about 
to get married — "Don't!" For Washington is a 
city without suburbs, with the exception of a single 
fine one. Of course there is delightful Alexandria 
but it has never seemed suburban, but the recent 
war has given it an impetus in that direction. Fort 
Myer has a military life of its own. There are 
several little towns near Washington but not pre- 
cisely of a kind to call suburbs. In fact there are 
hundreds of square miles near at hand of poor 
desolate country or of uncultivated pine woods, 
unused, that ought to be suburbs to meet the high 
rent problems of the city, and it is astonishing that 
this feaure has not been developed. 

The one real suburb is near but just over the 
Maryland line, a charming place, charmingly 
named. It is Chevy Chase and it is an accessible 
suburb of the finer class of living, with many es- 
tates, with delightful homes, with country clubs and 
golf links, with the natural landscape advantages 
of trees, and rolling country, through which wind 
cedar-bordered roads. And its great advantages 
for growth are that it has been unspoiled by any- 
thing but residential use and that it connects im- 
mediately with the finest living section of the city 
of Washington. 

'Chevy Chase has so many army officers living 
there and offers so many combats on the golf links, 

294 



GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 

even if of no other kind, that the old war-like ballad 
name fits the place : 

* ' The f raj^ began at Otterbourne betwixt the night and day, 
There the Douglas lost his life and the Percy was led 
away," 




295 



CHAPTER XXI 



FROM ALEXANDRIA TO FREHERICKaBURO 



ROM his early youth 
George Washington was a 
man's man. He made 
friends with all classes, 
rich and poor, British, 
French, German, Indian 
and American; and among 
the amusing examples of this was 
his becoming a volunteer fireman, 
a member of the Alexandria com- 
pany organized in 1774. He 
bought for them in Philadelphia 
an up-to-date hand engine and 
had it drawn by oxen to Alexan- 
dria; that being an old town even 
then. 

Alexandria was always important to George 
Washington as the town nearest Mount Vernon. 
And Alexandria gave one of the most remarkable 
examples of his life in his successful way of meet- 
ing men, for here he conferred with General Brad- 
docJ^ and five Colonial governors, and impressed 
them all, before the Braddock expedition started for 
the Ohio River country. 

296 




ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

The original fire engine has gone, but the house 
and the very room in which Braddock held his meet- 
ing are still there. 

Alexandria is a trifle less than eight miles down 
the Potomac from Washington. You drive into it 
through King Street, an old brick-housed thorough- 
fare; the houses showing an unexpected medley of 
color in «ream, red and yellow, and in all with a de- 
cided sense of attractiveness. King is only one of 
the many old-fashioned street names, there being 
also Duchess, Princess, Royal, Queen, Prince, Duke 
and other rolling titles of monarchy in this old 
aristocratic little town — itself named Bellhaven in 
early days, a name put upon a charming volume of 
shoj-t stories regarding it by one who was a child 
here. There is also a St. Asaph Street, remindful 
of the English bishop who was Franklin's friend 
and at whose home Franklin wrote most of his 
Autobiography. Cameron Street was named for 
the Baron of Cameron, better known as Lord Fair- 
fax. 

Among the colored people of Alexandria "Mar- 
cus" still survives as a name, a run-to-seed form 
of Marquis, from the Marquis de Lafayette who 
was often here. When he was welcomed on his 
1824 visit the entire town turned out and at every 
opportune moment a live eagle on an arch, flapped 
its wings and screamed a welcome — a boy hidden in 
the decorations jabbing it at the opportune moment 
with a pin. It is not every little town that could 
so spiritedly arrange matters! 

297 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Down near the Potomac's side stands the Carlyle 
house, where Braddock summoned his conference. 
At that time, it stood at the very water's ed'ge and 
was prominently in view as a distinguished town- 
house. It no longer shows from the street but is 
hidden from sight by an old hotel of Civil War days. 

The Carlyle house was built on a terrace formed 
by the foundations of an early fort, and within these 
foundations are still the original vaults and pass- 
ages. It is a huge, hip-roofed, square-fronted, three 
dormered old house, of stuccoed stone with cut 
quoins at the four corners. 

It is fascinating to realize that up the outside 
steps and through this front doorway and into the 
meeting-room walked Braddock and Governors 
Shirley of Massachusetts, Delancey of New York, 
Sharpe of Maryland, Morris of Pennsylvania, Din- 
widdle of Virginia and George Washington. 

The blue room, beautifully paneled and corniced, 
in which they met has an open fireplace surmounted 
by a paneled and pilastered chimney-breast; on 
each side of which is a superbly topped doorway, 
with the fine curve of an old open pediment. 

There are few rooms in America more filled with 
intense feeling for the past. Not only was the 
Braddock campaign discussed in this room but it 
represented the first meeting of representatives of 
the colonies to arrange a harmony of action. Wash- 
ington, at this first meeting, in 1755, in spite of some 
criticisms of the British general's plans, was given 

298 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

a commission as major and a place on Braddock's 
staff, he not only being an unusually impressive 
young man but he had commanded in the Ohio River 
country the year before when he was scarcely more 
than of age; and even before that had been in the 
same country as a commissioner from Governor 
Dinwiddle to the French. 

Washington's familiar title of colonel was given 
him by Virginia. And as to "major," Hawthorne 
had a curious story, for standing one day, with a 
friend, on a London street corner, an English regi- 
ment w^ent marching by, bound for the Crimean 
War, and Hawthorne's friend remarked that it was 
the very regiment with which George Washington 
had marched as a major a score of years before our 
country came into existence. 

There is a quaint and ancient church, Christ 
Church in Alexandria, a squarish church, square- 
sided, with square flat ceiling with a broad gallery 
on each side, with carved cornice, a church which 
shows a pew which was Washington's. There is 
an hexagonal, high-perched pulpit, on a slender ped- 
estal, with a beautiful, suspended sounding-board 
above, standing squarely in the middle of the chan- 
cel — here pronounced carefully, ''chauncel" — and 
flanked by two great panels of the creed and Lord's 
Prayer. 

A lovely old churchyard with shade trees and 
ancient stones adds charm and setting to the old 
mellow brick church. There is a sweet old belfry 

299 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

rising from a square tower in front of the church 
to an octagon of brick and gradations of white pil- 
lars above. 

Robert E. Lee had a pew in Christ Church and 
here he attended service on the April Sunday of 
1861, between the Saturday on which the resigna- 
tion of Lee was received by the National Govern- 
ment and the Monday on which he left for Rich- 
mond to take command of the Virginia forces of the 
Confederacy. 

The Masons of Alexandria have done a great deal 
to preserve the important relics of the town and to 
uphold its traditions. Their meeting hall is a re- 
placement after a fire, in which much of value was 
lost, but an astonishing amount preserved! Here 
is still shown the portrait of that amazing land- 
owner, Lord Fairfax, ruddy-faced, stout, white- 
wigged, wearing a claret-colored coat. Here is the 
portrait of that man of unique record. Doctor Craik, 
"my old and intimate friend. Doctor Craik" as 
"Washington's will has it. He wears a blue coat, a 
dull red waistcoat, and a white stock, and has dark 
unpowdered hair. He was with Washington in the 
fight at Great Meadows, in 1754, and it is declared 
that he was likewise with Washington in every con- 
flict after that date including the fighting at York- 
town. His Scotch blood showed, he stayed to the 
finish: for he was at the deathbed of Washington, 
and later at that of his widow. 

Among the distinctly Masonic relics is the chair 
in which Washington sat when he presided at meet- 

300 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

ings. After his death it has been used only by 
important presiding visitors, among whom Lafay- 
ette was one of the first. A few years ago it was 
used by President Taft and, as they naively tell 
you, '*it is now kept in a glass case." 

The Great War added much of the new to Alex- 
andria but fortunately without destroying the old. 
There are wide old streets paved with the most 
impossible cobblestones and they alternate with 
smooth-paved thoroughfares. There are old town- 
houses with queer gables. There are fine houses on 
the corners and at length as you turn down South 
Washington Street, you find old mansions, large 
and dignified and full of charm. Here is one of 
yellow fronted by huge fluted white pillars. Here 
is one oddly with a half gable to the street, with 
two-story galleries and with dormers, adjoining an 
ancient garden shaded by tall trees. There are 
brass knockers and delightful doorways. Most of 
the houses are directly on the sidewalk, as they were 
made for old-fashioned town living, but there is 
much of delightful brick-walled gardening. A great 
deal of wealth was centered in Alexandria in the 
old days, and you think it must have growTi up as 
a highly precise sort of town when you see such a 
sign as ''Five hundred and ten feet to R. R. cross- 
ing." 

Market Square, in the heart of the town, is now 
largely covered by court and market buildings, but 
it is where Braddock's troops were paraded and 
drilled — think of Washington quickstepping to the 

301 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

tune of the "British Grenadiers!" By going into 
the old market-house and looking about, you find 
an old, brick-paved square, and you visualize the old 
market place and drill ground, surrounded by the 
taverns and mansions of the old town. And in par- 
ticular you may find an ancient inn, bordered by 
still existent galleries, such as might figure in Pick- 
wick or even the Three Musketeers. Lovers of the 
old get great satisfaction out of Alexandria, and its 
old houses and its streets like the one named Ori- 
noco, reminiscent of the old shipping days. 

From old Alexandria we may drive in a few 
hours to much older Fredericksburg, which is half- 
way between Washington and Richmond, over an 
excellent road and through the heart of typical 
Virginia. It is not a farming country, yet now and 
then there are farms, and there are not infrequently 
orchards. There are few towns. It is generally 
wild country, a country of old pine woods and young 
pines overgrowing old fields. 

Myriad white birds twinkle in the sun on the water 
of the inlets. Buzzards go sailing in circles high 
over the cedars against the blue sky. Cedars and 
laurel grow freely on the hillsides. A sort of rough 
brown sedge-grass covers much of the scant 
meadows. It is a wild country with few crossroads. 
You come to a fork in the road but continue straight 
onward, for the road leading to the left would take 
you to Mount Vernon. 

A distance farther through the green pines and 
you see a great house on a hillside at your right. 

302 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

It is a large house of brick and white stone, of ad- 
mirable design, and the architect was that Thornton 
who designed the Octagon, the Tudor House in 
Georgetown, and a great part of the Capitol. The 
house is Woodlawn, the home built for Lawrence 
Lewis and his wife, who was Nellie 'Custis, the 
adopted daughter of George Washington, the grand- 
daughter of Martha Washington, and Lawrence 
Lewis being Washington's sister Betty's son. 

The house stands well up from the roadside on 
the top of a ridge and is reached by a cedar- 
bordered drive beginning at a great brick gateway 
with brick posts topped by stone balls. 

The land was a wedding gift from Washington to 
Nellie Custis and her husband, he deeming it a 
''most beautiful site for a Gentleman's seat." The 
house w^as built after Washington's death. It is a 
great wing-balanced mansion of brick, with small 
portico over the door, with white entablatures 
which show well at a distance, and with a small pedi- 
ment over the center. Beyond the wings the front 
line of Woodlawn is extended by garden walls of 
brick, with a square garden house at each end ; and 
great box gardens continue the line onward. It is 
one of the finest of the old type of great Virginia 
mansions. 

Continuing by the main road through the piney 
woods, Pohick is reached in two or three miles, a 
trifling collection of scattered homes at a cross- 
road. The central building is old Pohick Church, a 
venerable square structure, hip-roofed and oddly 

303 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

without either belfry or portico. When the parish- 
ioners were discussing the building of this church, 
Washington and his close friend, Colonel Mason of 
neighboring Gunston Hall led opposing factions as 
to the location. When the parishoners met to decide, 
Washington, surveyor that he was, was equipped 
with the actual distance from the front door of 
every house to the two localities; and he won! 

In one of the many fiction stories of Virginia, a 
brother and sister, before the war, are pictured in 
an isolated home, and a visitor from the North asks 
if they have ever been at Washington. ''No," re- 
sponded the brother, with proper dignity, ''but my 
sister has been at Pohickl" The full paucity of 
this worldly experience strikes you as you come 
through the lonely pine woods to the solitary old 
church and the two or three chicken-scratched old 
dooryards and forlorn cabins and farm houses. 
Yet in early days this little brick church was the 
center of a distinguished parish, and its list of 
vestrymen, before the Revolution, shows that 
eleven were members of the House of Burgesses, 
and Washington was a vestryman of the parish as 
was his father before him. 

The ivy-hung cedar-surrounded church was a 
ruin after the Civil War, but has been lovingly 
restored ; and its original fine stone quoined corners, 
its old worn doorsteps, and fine paired doorways, 
are still in place. If you are there on a pleasant 
Sunday morning, you will see a few motors and 
country carriages scattered among the trees, and if 

304 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

service has begun, you will hear the echoing sound 
of responses come softly through the windows. 
Enter, and you find the congregation standing, in 
their square pews, and facing the rector and pulpit 
on the side toward the road. As if continuing an 
old idea, the country carriages and the motor cars 
are not in line on the road but are scattered among 
the trees, past the old graves, below the church. 

It is a small and intimate group who worship here, 
and the faces of most of them show breeding. 
There could not well be a more peaceful setting, 
w^ith the Sabbath quiet, and the sunshine and the 
gentle breeze. 

Farther along in the road you see that it is a 
country of peepers in the swamps, and near the nicer 
of the little homes, you will see bird-houses on poles, 
sometimes six or seven in a group, a little thicket of 
bird-houses, and if it is early spring, these old, old 
homes are bowered in clouds of white plum 
blossoms. 

A careless desolation lies over the entire country- 
side. Nor is this to be ascribed entirely to the Civil 
War, for Charles Dickens, driving to Fredericks- 
burg twenty years before that time, wrote that the 
country approaching that city had once been very 
productive but that the soil had been exhausted by 
employing slave labor without strengthening the 
land, whereby it had become little better than a 
sandy desert overgrown with trees; and George 
AVashington, before the Revolutionary War, wrote 
of the evils of tobacco crops and said: ''Our lands 

305 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

were originally very good, but use and abuse have 
made them quite otherwise. ' ' 

There are still fords on the road and the water 
splashes high as you drive through. 

One notices the remains of three great old brick 
and stone Colonial mansions, among the small 
houses of the little village of Dumfries. One by the 
roadside is used as a lodge and thus kept from ruin. 
Another is barely more than a chimney — but such a 
chimney ! a tall chimney, Jacobean in style, with an 
insignificant wooden cabin built against it and using 
the flues of ancient grandeur. Another great old 
house upon the green hillside, faces out over the 
landscape with empty window sockets, with the 
stone steps crumbled away from the door and 
horses stabled in the cellar; a house that has been 
beautifully paneled but which has had its paneling 
torn out within a year for kindling wood; and 
around the old place rose bushes and daffodils still 
grow. 

There are amber lights in the misty distances. 
There is the pervasive smell of the piney woods. 
The singing of birds, the thorny hedges, the lush 
beauty of spring time, all are here. 

The road turns down a hill as if hanging against 
a cliff of yellow sandstone to a broad stream at the 
picturesque old crowded riverside village of Occo- 
quan, with its old ruined stone mill much like a 
medieval ruin, with the waterpower still tearing 
through, although the wheels have not turned for 
half a century. 

306 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

It is hard to realize that amid the lonely pine 
woods that border the road for mile after mile 
were great camps for the soldiers during the great 
European war; the road leads, high-causewayed 
and dry, across a great swamp, formerly a complete 
bar to traffic in wet weather, and at length you come 
to a point where you may look down and off at the 
broad Rappahannock, hurrying on through its rocks. 
You go down a long steep road into old Falmouth, 
passing a little courthouse always spoken of locally 
as the ** third seat of Justice in America." It could 
never have held a jury, twelve men couldn't get in! 
This old miniature seat of justice ranks in impos- 
sible tininess with the miniature old custom-house of 
Stonington in Connecticut — which, carefully built, 
does not look as if a chair and a table could be 
placed inside. Yet in this now shabby and forsaken 
old Falmouth, literally down hill, George Washing- 
ton went to school. 

You turn sharply into the road which parallels 
the riverside and in a few minutes you are opposite 
Fredericksburg. But before crossing the long, 
narrow bridge, you look first at the nearby farm 
where Washington's parents lived, and where 
his mother lived for some years as a widow. 
It is a high-set, riverside farm beautifully situated. 
The original house has gone but another is on the 
same site. This is the farm where the cherry tree 
grew : and the story told by Parson Weems does not 
seem impossible or absurd except in his method of 
telling. Weems knew everybody in the countryside 

307 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

and was liked by everybody and nothing is more 
probable than that the small boy chopped the tree 
and told about it. The neighborhood still abounds 
in human stories of George Washington and of his 
mother and sister. The grandeur of Mount Vernon 
was far away and they here remember the simple 
days. 

A dear old lady, over in Fredericksburg, looked 
back with me at this farm across the river, and told 
me, as if it were confidential and as if it happened 
but yesterday, that over there, little George was 
taught by his father to plant the name George 
Washington in cabbage seed, so as to give him the 
delight of seeing his own name spring into life, and 
that his father taught him also carefully to pull up 
the weeds, they being like vices or sins that needed 
uprooting. And all this as if it were about some 
little boy of yesterday ! 

The bridge leading into Fredericksburg is slender 
and high-set. The old town, officially organized two 
hundred and fifty years ago, has many quaint old 
houses, all fresh and prosperous. And there are 
charming gardens. There are hard-paved streets, 
for it is a busy prosperous place — an odd thing to 
find after a drive of hours through wilderness. And 
this thoroughly descriptive word marks one of the 
famous battlefields within a few miles' radius from 
this place. 

This sunny, prosperous, church-steepled town, 
nestled in the Rappahannock valley, has the terrible 
record of more dead in the* Civil War within a radius 

308 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

of twelve miles, than anywhere else in America. 
The most terrible battle of the region was here in 
Fredericksburg ; General Lee and his men occupying 
Marye 's Heights, the slight rise of land hemming in 
the town. It was a pitiful fight, for to begin with, 
Burnside lost heavily in trying to force a crossing 
from the north side of the river, a task at which he 
stubbornly kept, though his men fell off the pon- 
toons and the skeleton of the bridge with sickening 
steadiness, until Lee, who really wanted his op- 
ponents on his own side of the river, stopped his 
firing to let them walk into the trap. Through 
these streets, the Northerners marched only to be 
slaughtered by thousands as they attempted the 
hopeless task of driving Lee from his Heights. 
You see the locality just as it was on the battle day, 
with the cedar-bordered sunken road at the foot of 
the rise — a green, pleasant country lane. But 
Fredericksburg has lived do-wTi its tragedy. 

Both armies, in their shelling, avoided any serious 
damage to the histori'c home of Washington's 
mother — she having, as a widow, lived in the town; 
and the old home of Washington's sister, Mrs. 
Lewis, was also spared. 

A steep-roofed, dormered little house of wood at 
a quiet little corner of two quiet streets, in a good 
neighborhood then and now, as shown by the old 
houses still there, is where the mother lived; what is 
now the center of the house has been changed since 
her death but the corner wing with its brick 
chimney-end and the garden are as she left it. It 

309 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

was in this little dooryard garden with flowering 
shrubs and box bushes, busy with her potherbs, that 
Lafayette found her when he called, and a delight- 
ful description of the old lady's spirited conversa- 
tion and Lafayette's admiration of her, the mother 
of his great chief, has come down to us. 

Kenmore, the beautiful home of Washington's 
sister Betty, Mrs. Fielding Lewis, is a large brick 
mansion, delightfully placed as the important house 
on the green, and explaining why Thackeray drove 
down here to look for the home of the Warringtons. 

On the green, beside Kenmore, is the monument 
to the distinguished General Mercer who fell at 
Princeton, one of the American oflficers who had 
served in the army of Prince Charlie and had in 
consequence come to America. 

In an old graveyard near the green is the monu- 
ment to Washington's mother, of which it has often 
been said, that it is the only monument erected by 
women to the memory of a distinguished woman. 

One of the most familiar stories of Washington is 
still told in connection with the Kappahannock here, 
although it is often mistakenly placed beside the 
Potomac: the story that Washington once threw a 
silver dollar across the river, which was a possible 
thing for a man of unusual strength to do at this 
river ; but in need of the witty elucidation of Choate 
that ** money went farther in those days" when ap- 
plied to the broad Potomac : to which remark Choate 
added, after a little reflection, that Washington did 

310 



ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 

more than that, "having thrown a Sovereign across 
the Atlantic." 

Even now, a century and a quarter after the 
death of Washington, you will still find Fredericks- 
burg people as full of the oral tradition of him as if 
he were alive but yesterday. 

And a man of perhaps fifty told me, with as much 
sidewise caution as if telling of the doings of some 
distinguished citizen of to-day who might come upon 
us around the corner, that George Washington, 
coming to visit his rigid mother at Fredericksburg, 
did not always spend all his time in visiting, but that 
on occasion he would meet with friends at the little 
tavern, the Indian Queen, still standing there, and 
would not only talk, as wise men of old loved to 
do, and drink, which every gentleman did as a matter 
of course, but would at times join in a friendly game 
— and that he was not by any means always the 
winner; and of how, one night, he left for home by 
the ferry, having lost all his ready money, and met 
a stranger who wanted to buy his fine black horse, 
whereupon he sold it and with the money returned 
to the tavern, found his friends still there, sat in 
again with them and, amid uproarious gayety, won 
back all that he had lost, and more ! 

His sister Betty was tall for a woman and well set 
up, and her face so much resembled George's that 
when, for fun, she would throw a cloak around her 
shoulders, put on a Continental hat, and draw her- 
self up like a soldier, it was a famous matter in 

311 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Fredericksburg how much she could look like her 
brother ! 

In early days Fredericksburg had odd and im- 
portant connection with the sea. The people are 
proud of an old house, so made over as to seem new, 
lovingly known as the ^'sentry box" because from 
it the Rappahannock was watched during four wars 
for sea-raiders. And another old house is at least 
locally believed to have been "the only legal home 
in America" of John Paul Jones; a sidewalk-set old 
wooden house of two plain simple stories. 

But twilight is coming on and we start back on 
the long run to Washington. We look off in the 
sunset light into sapphire and rosy distances. The 
views seem more sweeping than on our approach. 
The pines are of an extraordinary vivid green. As 
darkness settles we realize that this is the very 
heart of old Virginia. 




CHAPTER XXII 



MOUNT VERNON" 



OUNT VERNON 

gave remarkable op- 
portunity to George 
AVashington to show 
his superman qual- 
ities. As a general 
he was a genius. 
As a President he 
was of vast ability. 
But at Mount Ver- 
non he displayed 
what would be term- 
ed, in modern 
phraseology, in su- 
per-degree, the 
qualities of a buyer. 
He filled Mount 
Vernon with the most delicately beautiful furniture 
of his time. Silver, china, glass were purchased by 
him in great quantities and in great good taste. 
Upholsteries, hangings were freely bought. And 
all this was done without being in touch with shops 
where things of value could be purchased. He was 
never in England. But he dealt in London ! 

313 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Nor should it be thought that he merely trans- 
ferred his problems to others. The important point 
was that he knew what he wanted. 

He was a superman as a manager and adminis- 
trator. The same basic qualities which made him 
do the impossible at Valley Forge, which made him 
hold the army together in defeat as in victory, and 
even through the impossible two years between the 
surrender of Cornwallis and the Treaty of Peace, 
gave him the power to manage Mount Vernon and 
its multifarious concerns. He could be absent from 
home for years at a time and, returning, find that 
his explicit orders had been carried out as if he had 
been there to see to them. With what might almost 
be called modesty, he quietly saw to the controlling 
of everything that needed his control. 

In the long lists of ordered purchases from 
abroad, he even specified precisely what cloth he 
wanted for his splendid and colorful clothes, 
and he even wrote out directions as to cloth 
for the gowns of his wife. But it may fairly 
be presumed that in this last respect she had sup- 
plied her ideas, for he would have been the last 
man in the world to be discourteous or disre- 
gardful toward his wife. 

His mail orders sometimes covered two hundred 
items at a time. And the difiiculty of buying was 
much increased by his being compelled to use a 
system essentially of barter. He looked on 
tobacco as an injurious crop, but grew on his estate 

314 



MOUNT VERNON 

a sufficient quantity to sell for enough to make all his 
purchases. 

To those handling his orders in London his letters 
were full of precise directions, such as — this being; 
an excellent example: ^'1 fine bed coverlid to 
match the curtains. 4 chair bottoms of the same; 
that is, as much covering suited to the above furni- 
ture as will go over the seats of 4 chairs (which I 
have by me) in order to make the whole furniture 
of this room uniformly handsome and genteel." 

He makes use now and then of the words ''hand- 
some," "genteel" and ''fashionable," and mentions 
leeway in judgment when there is doubt regarding 
a possibly changing fashion. And steadily he 
brings things to pass. 

Now and then, even the great Washington met 
with temporary setbacks. When he pleased him- 
self by ordering busts of Alexander the Great, Julius 
Caesar, Charles of Sweden, Frederick the Great, 
Prince Eugene, and the Duke of Marlborough, with 
the idea that he would have great pleasure in con- 
templating these military leaders, picture his dis- 
may at finding that the dealer had supplied, instead, 
such tilings as busts of.<fEneas and Anchises, and 
two groups each of Bacchus and Flora! But it 
was seldom that, either by inadvertence or inability, 
any one sent Washington anything other than he 
ordered. His word was law. 

Washington loved the soil. He was an innate 
farmer. In himself he fitted the ancient myth of 

315 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

the man who regained his strength whenever he 
touched the ground, and I remember coming some- 
where upon some writing of his in which he was 
positively lyric in praise of the triumphs of the 
farmer, compared with those of the soldier. 

Admiral Vernon, Admiral of the Blue, was the 
man for whom Mount Vernon was named. The 
Admiral had won fame and immense public interest 
by attacking Carthagena, and he had also won the 
devotion of his men. Among others he won the 
loving admiration of one of his officers named 
Lawrence Washington, who named in his honor his 
estate of Mount Vernon, which he had inherited 
from his father. 

Lawrence Washington, retiring from the service, 
was taken ill and went to the West Indies in an 
effort to recover his health. His young half-brother, 
George Washington, accompanied him to care for 
him — the only time when George Washington left 
the confines of what was to be the United States of 
America. 

Lawrence returned home in time to die here, and 
he willed Mount Vernon to his half-brother George. 
From this time until the close of his life, George 
Washington loved Mount Vernon with a love that 
was unfeigned and unbounded. 

To take advantage of the glorious river view the 
house, which stands on a bluff one hundred and 
twenty-five feet above the water, has its greatest 
dimension in its lengthwise front, giving thus the 

316 




•.mik^ 



MOUNT VERNON 

opportunity for views from many windows. It is 
ninety-six feet long by thirtj' deep and each of the 
long facades is a finished front for the building, one 
facing toward the river and the other inland. 

A little octagonal weather-vaned cupola, or 
lantern, with each of its eight sides holding fifteen 
panes of glass, surmounts the roof and gives an un- 
rivaled outlook in every direction. Below the 
cupola are several dormers, almost hidden behind 
an openwork rail extending along the whole piazza 
roof, above the line of eight tall, two-story square 
pillars, which form the most striking feature of the 
mansion's front. 

The house, originally built in 1743, is much longer 
than w^hen Washington acquired it, it having been 
quite typical of his methods that, when about to 
leave on an indefinite absence, he ordered changes 
that added forty-four feet to the front. When he 
returned, he found the changes and additions made 
as completely and satisfactorily as they c^uld have 
been if he had given them personal supervision. 

Along the riverfront of the entire house is a 
piazza, fifteen feet deep and twenty-five feet high 
The floor of the piazza is paved with flat stone flags, 
carried here from the Isle of Wight. Back and 
forth on these stones was the rainy day walk of the 
Father of his Country. Here he received many 
visitors and seated them in the thirty Windsor chairs 
that originally stood here. 

There is considerable of the original furnishing 
in the house, but it is all a matter of restitution, for 

317 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

after the death of Washington and his widow the 
entire house was emptied by bequest, gift and 
auction. When the Mount Vernon Ladies' Associa- 
tion was organized in 1856 and the National Govern- 
ment and the entire nation began to take an interest 
in the matter, many of the original furnishings and 
ornaments were restored, and the rest of the space 
was gradually filled with similar things of the 
period. The ladies to whom has fallen the heritage 
of caring for Mount Vernon manage it with most 
devoted and efficient care. 

Mount Vernon is sixteen miles south of Wash- 
ington on the opposite side of the Potomac. It may 
be reached by steamer or by trolley or, as most 
people nowadays go, by motor-car. The road is 
well surfaced and leads through Alexandria. This 
road is strikingly in appearance as it must have been 
generations ago, though there are more woods and 
fewer fields, with here and there a cabin beside the 
road, with clothes drying on the fence ; and the last 
time I went over it I met an old negro woman who 
seemed to have walked directly out of the distant 
past, stooping as she was beneath a large basket 
filled with pussy-willows and sassafras bark and 
poke-root shoots. 

And, so long as you make the single turn at the 
fork not far from your destination, there is only 
one way to go, as is generally the case in sparsely- 
roaded Virginia. The Potomac sweeps for miles 
near the road, alternately coming into sight and dis- 
appearing. The country-side is gently rolling and 

318 



MOUNT VEENON 

is wooded with insignificant trees. You pass by 
the roadside a spot associated with one of the many 
visits of John Marshall. He and a friend and a 
servant rode down on a day so hot that they rode in 
old clothes and decided to change in the woods near 
the house, to be fresh on arrival. They stopped 
here by the roadside and took off their dusty clothes 
and the servant opened the bag to get out their 
better ones — when out poured the general medley of 
a peddlar's pack! The bag had been changed at 
the Alexandria tavern! The friends shrieked with 
laughter and rolled, unclad, on the ground! — and 
the Father of his Country came riding out to learn 
the cause of the extraordinary mirth. 

Approaching- Mount Vernon, it is surprising to 
notice, clustered about it, some two hundred enorm- 
ous trees. They are largely of unusual varieties 
and most of them were set out by Washington him- 
self with all the care of a tree-lover, and can be 
identified from his diary. Washington was a tree- 
collector, as well as a tree-lover, and often wrote 
for specimens to friends or to scientists in various 
parts of America and Europe, in addition to gather- 
ing trees personally in localities that he visited. 

Elms were an especial choice and there are a 
number of these now close to ninety feet in height. 
There are giant tulips that he set out and huge 
hemlocks somber in dark green. There are beech 
trees of his planting. There are ash. There is a 
sugar maple which has reached to ninety-one feet; 
and those who study his trees declare that the 

319 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

tallest of all is well over one hundred feet high. 
There are lindens and honey-locusts; and he has 
somewhere written that on a March day in the late 
seventeen-eighties he planted more than seventeen 
thousand honey-locust seeds. He often brought 
home in his saddlebags tree seeds from distant 
places to which he had gone ; and some rare buckeyes 
were gathered in the Cheat River region — even now 
wild and beautiful with rhododendron thickets. 

Thomas Jefferson gathered things animate and 
inanimate, and, himself a devoted tree-planter, gave 
to Washington the three pecan trees which grow 
in the front lawn of the mansion. Box was an 
especial favorite of the master of Mount Vernon 
and he was very successful in growing it. It was 
rooted under his own supervision by beating it firm 
in sand, and large areas in the vicinity of the house 
are geometrically outlined with billowy box masses, 
four feet high. 

Mount Vernon is entered by the driving road 
through and beside these groups and single giant 
trees. 

One approaches the immediate grounds beside a 
long line of servants' quarters, dormer windowed, 
red-roofed, surrounded by flowers, and overgrown 
with thick masses of ivy. 

Although the driveway leads to the house, it is 
not now to be used, and you leave your car outside 
and walk in. Thus the modern, the noisy, the risk 
of fire, are left well outside and rich and poor go 
in alike on foot — on an equal footing. 

320 



MOUNT VERNON 

Nothing could be more different than the two 
fronts of Mount Vernon: the superb pillared front 
toward the water, and the beautiful unpillared front 
facing inland, with its central door, its fine pediment 
on the cornice line with its round window, charm- 
ingly spider-webbed in design. Washington took 
great pride in the doorsteps of this front. They 
are square, they are of stone, they decrease evenly 
in size, as they go up. 

If it were not for the altogether charming and 
altogether unique little cupola on the roof it would 
not seem that this could be the same house whose 
river-front is so familiar to every one. 

Sweeping away at either corner from this inland 
front are delightful curving arcades connecting with 
the kitchen and offices. There are quaint outlying 
kitchen and wash-houses, a perfect village of tiny 
household dependences, with roofs dormered and 
delectably steep and with chimneys quaintly large 
throated. 

The curving sweep of the old driveway swings 
around the old lawn-like bowling green in its central 
position, and passes the exquisite gardens at right 
and left, in all their beauty of paths and boxborders, 
old walls and charming garden houses. 

The superb river front of Mount Vernon has never 
been broken by driveway or footpath. The house 
is perfectly set and looks out in restful dignity at 
the superb sweeps of river, at the glimmering glory 
of the unspoiled distances. 

When you visit Mount Vernon go, if you can, on 

321 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

a pleasant day at an early hour so as to miss 
throngs. The custodians are many, but they are 
necessary and unobtrusive. It is the peeking and 
peering and pushing of people on your heels that 
destroy effects. Have Mount Vernon as nearly as 
possible to yourself — and your imagination will pic- 
ture and people the mansion with the life of the 
past, and you will think of Washington pacing soli- 
tary on the long piazza on rainy days, or walking 
there alone on sleepless nights. 

In every detail the building, the outbuildings, and 
the lawns, parks and gardens, represent the splendid 
taste, the boundless enthusiasm, the tireless indus- 
try, the loving care, of the great man who planned 
everything there. 

Washington was among the great landowners and 
increased the size of Mount Vernon to eight thou- 
sand acres. Now the estate measures two hundred 
and thirty-seven and a half. 

In the greenhouse is a much-traveled, tall-tufted 
sago palm, twelve feet in height, with a most strik- 
ing history. It was sold at the auction in 1802 and 
remained in a greenhouse up the Hudson River until 
the very recent year of 1920, when it was restored 
to Mount Vernon. Close by, hanging on the wall 
are two of the quaintest imaginable sprinkling 'cans-. 
They look like lead but are really of copper. They 
hold many gallons of water and have queer, circle- 
sweeping handles. They were here in use in the 
famous days of the house and gardens. Among 
the other little buildings is the ice-house over which 

322 



MOUNT VERNON 

the emotional old lady was found weeping, accord- 
ing to the story of half a century ago, under the 
impression that she was weeping over the tomb! 

In one of these little houses, in 1787, lived an 
especially good gardener named Baxter, whose 
single defect was that he drank too much; one of 
the surprisingly many white servants that Wash- 
ington maintained. Baxter drank so freely as to 
destroy his usefulness, and Washington avoided the 
necessity of discharging him by making what might 
be called a psychological contract with him. He 
had a bond formally dra^\^l up, binding Washington, 
on his part, to give certain money and clothes to 
Baxter in the course of the next year, and binding 
Baxter to do certain daily work, and permitting him 
to be drunk just four days and four nights at 
Christmas, two days similarly at Easter and two at 
Whitsuntide — and it worked! 

In another little house lived Bishop, the English 
body-servant, who had been left by the dying Brad- 
dock to the care of Washington, and who was for 
forty years a faithful caretaker of the place. 

Mount Vernon is a building of pine whose long 
boards are cut to resemble blocks of cut stone. 
With some amusement one remembers that Wash- 
ington, on passing through Connecticut, wrote of his 
amazement that there the houses were built of frame 
instead of stone! 

Washington lived as proprietor at Mount Vernon 
for a few years before his marriage in 1759. It 
would seem that his independent-minded mother 

323 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

was here at least once in that period, but it would 
also seem, with somewhat of vagueness, that she 
never visited there after his marriage. Toward the 
close of her life she intimated her readiness, strong- 
willed though she was, to end her days with her son, 
but Washington, knowing that she had her comfort- 
able home in Fredericksburg near the foot of her 
daughter's garden, did not accept her suggestion. 

The house centers about the hallway. Innum- 
erable times here stood George and Martha Wash- 
ington receiving formal guests, and one gets a gen- 
eral impression that they welcomed all of America 
and half of Europe! The hallway extends through 
the house with a great door at either end. The 
paneling is as Washington built it in 1775. On 
either side of the heavily corniced wall are two 
broken-arched doorways, and there are beautiful 
articles of furniture. 

Here in the hall is the huge key of the Bastille, 
sent as a personal gift from the man who ordered 
the great prison torn down, the rapidly developed 
Lafayette who only eight years before had finished 
his youthful American warfare. Here also in the 
hall are three of the four swords left by Washington 
to his nephews, with his unforgetable injunction: 
*'Not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding 
blood, except it be in self-defense or in defense 
of their Country and its rights, and in the latter 
case to keep them unsheathed and prefer falling 
with them in their hands to the relinquishment 
thereof." 

324 



MOUNT VERNON 

The easy-rising stairway of black walnut mounts 
at one side of the hall with delightful balusters — 
three on each step — and a fine ramp, and with a 
turn half way up, where stands a tall clock that was 
owned by Lawrence Washington. One pictures 
Washington roused from sleep and descending the 
stair with a candle, the night that Houdon, the 
sculptor, sent from Paris by Jefferson and Franklin, 
to model Washington, arrived with three compan- 
ions by water from Alexandria, getting Washington 
out of bed. The original statue is in the State 
House, of Virginia; and a clay study of the head 
only was left at Mount Vernon, where it may still 
be seen. 

In the music room is a harpsichord which Wash- 
ington imported from England as a thousand dollar 
gift to his wife's grandaughter, Nellie Custis. It 
is still a beautiful instrument, tawny colored, slen- 
der legged, something the shape of a little grand 
piano of modern days and \\ith a double-tiered key- 
board. 

Of all the musical instruments that the imagina- 
tion could associate with George Washington the 
flute" would be the most romantic. The picture of 
the Father of his Country puffing and blowing away 
his very soul, while his foot tapped time to the 
music, is a picture you love to turn over in your 
mind! And the flute which was his very own is in 
the music room. 

In the west parlor, a paneled room with stucco- 
ornamented ceiling and containing some beautiful 

325 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Chippendale chairs, is a large Aubusson carpet 
which was sent as a gift to Washington by Louis 
the Sixteenth. Washington could not, under the 
law, accept a gift from a foreign potentate ; and the 
carpet, centered by an eagle surrounded by stars, 
was sold to some one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 
In 1897, after years of use, it was presented to the 
building for which it was intended more than a 
century before. 

The intimate little family dining-room, is reminis- 
cent of thousands of guests, for it was freely used 
with intimates; and it is said that one day in the 
late 1780 's Washington suddenly laid down his knife 
and fork, leaned back in his chair, and said to his 
wife that he believed this to be the first time in their 
married life that they had dined alone! Guests 
were always welcome at Mount Vernon. Washing- 
ton was willing in those early days of the nation 
to have his home treated essentially as a building 
of the Government. His managers even had his 
careful instructions as to what to offer in food and 
drink and general hospitality to unexpected guests 
who arrived when he and his wife were absent. 

In this room there is a Heppelwhite sideboard of 
Washington's, presented by Mrs. Eobert E. Lee 
in 1860, of positively lovely curves, and there are 
mahogany chests filled with great square old bottles. 
One case came from the Fairfax auction at Belvoir, 
the adjoining place, just before the Kevolution, when 
that Fairfax family returned to England. Wash- 
ington always remained young enough to enjoy an 

326 



MOUNT VERNON 

auction, a^d from his diarj^ may be picked out many 
an item of auction purchases. 

Both for this room and the great dining-room all 
food was carried in from the outside kitchen along 
one of the covered colonnades — one can picture the 
running back and forth with covered dishes ! 

The only time in all his years of life at Mount 
Vernon that any one there succeeded in passing upon 
him even a jesting impertinence — the stories of the 
personal awe inspired by Washington being almost 
incredible — occurred one dinner-time when the fa- 
mous Light-horse Harry Lee, whose mother was a 
friend of his youth, was a guest. "Washington re- 
marked that he would like to buy a pair of carriage 
horses, whereupon young Lee facetiously responded 
that he had a pair for sale but that Washington 
could not buy them. **Why not?" asked Washing- 
ton incautiously. **Well," replied Lee, **you never 
pay more than half price for anything and I won't 
sell except for full price." Mrs. Washington 
laughed and her parrot burst into a torrent of mirth. 
At which Washington, whose face had begun to 
chill, laughed too and said: "Well, Lee, you're a 
funny fellow; see, even the bird is laughing at you." 

Perhaps the only other formal effort on record 
of even an attempt to shake Washington's amour 
propre was made by Gouverneur Morris, when, on 
a dare, he entered the dining-room in Philadelphia, 
and with a familiar greeting, slapped him on the 
shoulder. There was no parrot to relieve this much 
worse situation, and the guests watched in horror 

327 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

as Washington turned his eyes on the culprit and 
froze him with a silent look. It was rather curious 
that Gouvemeur Morris, over in Paris, posed for 
Houdon for Washington 's legs, which the artist had 
not been able to make for the statue while in 
America; and as the legs are disturbingly queer 
for their great subject, one wonders if Morris did 
not have a fine revenge! 

Throughout the house are scattered many mili- 
tary pictures of men or scenes, for which Washing- 
ton had a great regard. They used to line the whole 
staircase. 

The great banquet-room was planned by Wash- 
ington personally, and was added by him just as the 
Revolution was beginning. This was one of the 
changes that developed the house into a mansion. 
The great triple Palladian window centers the end 
of the house and was always a point of pride. The 
elaborate marble mantel, in the center of the wall, 
opposite the great window, was sent as a gift at a 
later date from an English admirer of Washington 
named Vaughn. It is a great Siena marble mantel 
in three colors, with entablatures in relief showing 
scenes in agriculture. One of the most interesting 
of Mount Vernon stories is that the ship bringing 
it was captured by French pirates, who, when they 
found it was intended for George Washington, sent 
it most carefully on its way. 

The library at the other end of the house was 
made for quiet retreat, for isolation, and for study, 
and at the ^ame time with a splendid view ; a room 

328 



MOUNT VERNON 

which looks as it did when the great owner was here, 
for one wall is lined with glass-protected bookcases 
and the cases are filled with books. Most of the 
original volumes are in the library of the Boston 
Athenaeum but great pains have been taken to fill 
these shelves with books of the same titles and the 
same period. Even the old tambour desk and re- 
volving armchair, left in his will to his old friend 
Doctor Craik, is here where it used to be, and the 
only long windows in the house permit the eyes of 
the one seated at the desk to sw^eep down to the 
river and the wharf. Washington was frequently 
at his desk in this room before daylight and built 
his own fire on the hearth. 

Mount Vernon had many bedrooms to hold its 
many guests. Whole neighborhood parties used to 
stay the night. John Marshall tells of a night he 
stayed here. He had no idea that anything was to 
be asked of him ; to him it w^as only that as one who 
had been a young officer in Washington's army, he 
had been given an invitation. 

But when evening came, the two men sat together 
in front of one of the fireplaces and Washington out- 
lined a task which he wished to be performed. Mar- 
shall, who tells the story himself, omits to mention 
precisely what the task was, but tells that it was 
something which he was extremely anxious to avoid. 
Washington, however, would not listen to him and 
treated the matter as if settled. 

Marshall has narrated how he lay awake for hours 
until nearly daylight, when he silently got up and 

329 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

began to dress, preparing to make his escape, but 
he could not find his top boots! English-fashion 
they had been slipped quietly away by a servant to 
be cleaned. There was only one thing to be done. 
Marshall felt his way down the stairs, opened an 
outside door and made his way to the servants' 
quarters to find his boots. Suddenly there was a 
slight sound behind him. He turned, still in his 
stockings, and above him towered a tall form, fully 
dressed — and Marshall took the work! 

The bedroom in which Washington died, the south 
bedroom on the second floor, has a staircase by which 
he could reach his library below, and also out-of- 
doors, without going into the main hall. Most of 
the furniture now in this room was here in his 
day, including the four-poster bed upon which he 
died — a bed of a strange shortness for a man as 
tall as we know Washington to have been. 

After his death his widow did a fine and thought- 
ful thing. She destroyed his personal letters to 
her. His diaries, his letters to friends, his state 
papers all were kept. But the letters to herself 
were to be seen by no eyes but her own. To this 
she made one exception. She kept the letter, for all 
to read, in which Washington told her of having 
to go at once to take command af the American 
forces; a letter which he ended with affection for 
his ''dear Patsey.^' By this letter the world knows 
the affection around which this household grew. 

His body lies within a brick vault at some dis- 
tance down the slope from the mansion. There 

330 



MOUNT VERNON 



George and Martha Washington lie side by -side, 
each within a marble sarcophagus. There is a won- 
derful growth of dark ivy. about the tomb, and 
against the brick w^all clings early-blooming jasmine. 

Never was any place so full of the personality of 
the man who made it his o^\^l. He loved every cor- 
ner of the house, every article of furniture, every 
tree and shrub and ha-ha wall. They w^ere his ! 

A thought freely evoked with Mount Vernon is 
that of mounted officers riding the pine woods road 
thither as daylight began to wane ; for military men 
from either side of the Atlantic were always treated 
as brothers in arms. And one evening, as I drove 
back toward the city, just as darkness was coming 
on, I was almost startled, for there, riding in the 
direction I Avas quitting, were three carefully 
groomed officers on horseback. It was ghostly. 




fffih. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



ANNAPOLIS 



A Tthi 

A* 



T the National Museum, the 
old building, there is a 
child's christening robe, 
of white silk brocade, 
a robe so delicate and 
attractive that it would draw 
attention even if it were not 
associated with any 
known individual. 
Its interest is there- 
fore immensely 
added to when it is 
learned that it was 
the christening robe of George Washington. 

Near it is a uniform, so fine as also to attract at- 
tention; a Continental General's uniform, with blue 
coat, buff waistcoat and breeches, and a buff 
turned-over high military collar. The high-cut 
military coat has buff-facings, with ten big brass 
buttons on each side and there are a dozen smaller 
ones down the waistcoat. This is the uniform in 
which General Washington appeared before the 
Continental Congress in Annapolis to resign his 

332 




ANNAPOLIS 

military commission at the close of the Revolution. 
And you are overwhelmed to realize that there 
could be such a span in human life as between this 
christening robe and the wearing of this Continental 
uniform. And this reflection adds zest to a pilgrim- 
age to Annapolis. 

Washington is left by motor, by way of Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue, leaving the Congressional Cemetery 
on the left and crossing the bridge over the Ana- 
costia. It is a hilly way and you shortly come to 
where there rises beside the road, on a commanding 
height, a fort, Fort Dupont, still well defined and 
cared for, and with the fort covered with tall trees 
and greenery. This was one of the Civil War ring 
of forts built for the defense of Washington, and in 
its location, somehow suggests Mont St. Valerien, 
protecting Paris. Fruit trees are in blossom about 
the fort, peach and apple. 

Continuing there is a little cottage bowered in 
lilacs and honeysuckle thickets which are a feature 
of Maryland highways ; and you begin to realize that 
this is a verj^ attractive road. There are lieldbeds 
of daffodils for the street flower venders of the city, 
and a neighborhood of small market-garden hold- 
ings. 

Motor-loads of little calves are going to their fate. 
There are old Maryland houses, set in the midst of 
farms, with black-boled locust trees, with galleries 
and outside kitchens and old flower beds and with 
old shaggy cedars along the highways. Farther 
along there are other farmhouses, with outside 

333 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

chimneys built against their ends, with tangles of 
vines on them. The houses are far apart as you 
get well away from Washington and into the region 
of salt water inlets and now and then there are seen 
the quaintest old log cabins, perha»ps old slave 
quarters. 

As we approach the neighborhood of Marlborough 
we come to a succession of big, old houses mostly 
brick, Maryland manors, as such places are called, 
set well back from the road, acre surrounded, amid 
fine old trees. One old house at the edge of the 
town stands on a hillside surrounded by a circle of 
giant oaks. If you are so fortunate as to live in this 
county you would call yourself a "Prince Georgian" 
— fascinating name ! 

Upper Marlborough is the principal to^^^l on the 
road between Washington and Annapolis, a queer, 
quaint eighteenth-century county-towai, at a meet- 
ing of roads, with fascinating old houses, with 
paling-enclosed gardens and with enough of modern 
banks and garages to keep in touch with the times. 
A tremendous ancient elm, the gate-tree, guards a 
school house where stood the home of the town hero. 
Dr. Beanes, whose bravery had the unthought-of 
result of the writing of the Star Spangled Banner. 
Had there been many more such men the British 
army would never have reached the Capital. 

A causeway road leaves Upper Marlborough 
twisting with many bridges through swamp land. 
And you see such queer looking growths in these 
queer open swamps that if you were told they were 

334* 



ANNAPOLIS 

lotus and papyrus you would hiesitate before dis- 
believing it. 

On crossing a river you enter a gravel country 
whose roads are well and naturally made. And as 
the highway goes through old Harwood, it loops and 
bends around the ends of deep ravines ; and you see 
this must be a terminal moraine of an old ice 
age to account for such curious deepness. 

Eight miles out from Annapolis is a lone brick 
church, a little old church on a knoll, with giant oaks, 
with old graves around it hidden in the white myrtle 
w^hich blossoms wild and free over the field. There 
are old armorial bearings and titled names and an 
air of the long ago past; it represents church and 
state ; it stands for the time when they w^ere united, 
and just such little brick Episcopalian churches still 
exist all through Maryland. 

Approaching Annapolis the road runs through 
estuary country and over the long South River 
bridge, a region of enchanting views ; there are sail- 
boats with patched sails swelling m the breeze; 
there are seine-poles in the water; and there is an 
old low-set house — it seems as if everything is back 
a hundred years — and in its dooryard is a long 
ancient bird-house on four high posts, with a roof 
along whose lower edge are twenty little doors for 
the birds to go in. 

Entering Annapolis, the attention goes instantly 
to its center, the State House, one of the three re- 
markable eighteenth-century State Houses of 
America — the other two being the old red brick 

335 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

State House of Boston and Independence Hall of 
Philadelphia. Again and again, one is amazed by 
the splendid building effects of that age. 

The Annapolis State House from its position on 
a knoll draws the narrow streeted town to itself as 
a center. It is a beautiful building of brick with a 
great quantity of white to relieve it. There are little 
white pillars at the entrance, with gable and oval 
window above, and over all the huge white dome 
rising in great towering octagon gradations until it 
becomes the great liberty cap of the whole town. 

Annapolis has atmosphere. It has an air. It 
has always had atmosphere and an air. Since the 
days of its founding, far back in the sixteen- 
hundreds — for it is one of the oldest of American 
towns 'and at the same time keeps up an active 
modern life — it has always been a little capital, in 
fact as well as in formality. Annapolis is, as it has 
from the first been, alert, gay, cheerful, mellow, 
composed, serene, a town of happiness, a town of 
social life. 

Wherever you look, wherever you go, there is 
something of interest. Turn down one street and it 
is the Duke of Gloucester Street; try another and 
it is Prince George and the next King George ; in the 
church you find King William's gift of silver. 
Turn into Main Street, and at once you see a red 
garden wall enclosing a green garden, a yellow 
house, gambrel-roofed, a captain's walk upon the 
top, remindful that this has always been -a port ; a 
house over which the State House dome rounds 

336 



ANNAPOLIS 

against the blue sky; a very old house this, now the 
Elks home — and you want to be an elk to live in such 
an animal house ! 

The atmosphere of Tilghman, Lafayette, Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton and their friends, is intangibly 
felt. Charles Carroll was born in this town and was 
looked upon by many as the richest man in America 
when he signed the Declaration of Independence. 
John Adams, always curious about his fellow-man's 
affairs, wrote immediately before the Revolution 
that Carroll 's income was then ten thousand pounds 
sterling. The old Carroll house is now a home for 
young priests. In the old days the family always 
maintained a resident priest and an upstairs private 
chapel. 

The house is large and dignified, and very plain, 
and stands in the midst of broad and terraced 
grounds overlooking the tidewater, whose quaint 
gazebos are now only billowy masses of box. 
Carroll was the last survivor of the honored band of 
'' Signers." George Washington was on terms of 
social intimacy with him and diarizes, in 1771, that 
he dined with Charles Carroll *'and went to the 
ball." 

The town and its immediate neighborhood are 
dotted with fine old mansions. Sloping to Spa 
Creek are the broad grounds of Acton, which has in 
a high degree retained its original setting. It is a 
double-front-gabled house with pillared portico. 

On the narrow towni streets are an astonishing 
number of beautiful brick eighteenth-century 

337 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

houses, with large central portion, flanked by a wing 
on either side, balanced and alike. Some of these 
are now hotels, some are endowed homes, some are 
still private houses. One of the houses is a stately 
Colonial mansion now occupied by an order of nuns. 
This is the Scott mansion, and has been looked upon 
as the original of Winston Churchill's Carvel Hall. 
The novelist himself, however, has always declared 
that he had no single house in mind. 

The old town of Annapolis abounds in box gardens 
and old trees and there are enough retired admirals 
and commodores to preserve the old traditions and 
keep the box and the daffodils dreams of beauty 
about the old houses, and there is many a water 
view of unusual charm across some one or another 
of the sparkling inlets. The town is a revel of fine 
doorways, staircases, fireplaces and paneling. 

The old waterside with its oyster boats and 
memories of shipping and old shipping fortunes is 
rich in tradition and tales of important happenings. 
They had a highly impressive tea-party here in 
1774. The Peggy Steivart, Annapolis owned, sailed 
in with two thousand three hundred and twenty 
pounds of tea, and the townfolks, led bj^ Charles 
Carroll insisted that the boat and its cargo be 
burned ! Thoroughly frightened by the fury of his 
fellow Annapolitans the owner ran the boat ashore 
and himself set fire to the costly material, the ship 
and all the tea. His sick wife watched from the 
home window. Liberty lovers could often show 
themselves very cruel. 

338 



ANNAPOLIS 

The Naval Academy is on the waterfront of Ann- 
apolis. It was not established until forty years 
after the Military Academy at West Point. From 
the first it made itself seem part of the town, and 
the blue clad young men add much to the aspect not 
only of the great academy grounds but of the old 
narrow streets of Annapolis. The Naval Academy 
is not away from the town but so intimately placed 
at the foot of old mansion-bordered Maiyland 
Avenue as to seem closely a part of Annapolis. 

The sparkling salt water stretches off for miles. 
The white gulls circle and cry. and dive. The 
Academies at Annapolis and West Point are alil^e 
in having retained the beautiful inspiring surround- 
ings in which they were first placed. There is noth- 
ing sordid mth either, such as has crept into the 
surroundings of even Harvard and Yale. 

You are fortunate if you are there when pictur- 
esque boat practice is in progress on the waterfront. 

The Naval Academy grounds are a krge white 
city with the white stone buildings- that within re- 
cent years have been built. The great Bancroft 
Hall is the principal stinicture and it is of enormous 
size and solidity. Its entrance is approached by 
broad granite steps and faces immediately upon a 
great, long dazzling terrace, made for effectiveness 
and for the assembling of the midshipmen. 

At the entrance are magnificent ancient patina- 
green cannon, cannon that are personally named 
and given inscriptions and coats of arms, cannon of 
French and Spanish make, brought here from the 

339 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Spanish Main, cast in a time, the first half of the 
seventeen-hundreds when cannon making was one 
of the fine arts. On entering the building you see 
corridors a tenth of a mile long, leading right and 
left to the dormitories, and traversing a great 
marble corridor you mount a great granite stair- 
case and enter a superb assembly room called 
Memorial Hall. It is a magnificent awe-inspiring 
hall, barrel-roofed in white stone with pillars at 
either end and a fine polished oak floor. Its great 
windows reaching to the floor give great views of 
the new parade ground and out over the water, the 
Severn, with its green headlands and landlocked 
beauty. The walls are richly impressive with por- 
traits of American naval heroes of many wars. 

The Chapel is green domed, modern and dom- 
inating, frankly showing the influence of the chapel 
of the Hotel des Invalides. The crypt beneath the 
chapel is circular and very impressive and well ful- 
fills the purpose for which it was made, the holding 
of the body of our country's greatest naval hero, 
John Paul Jones, brought here from Paris after 
having been lost for a century and then sought for 
and discovered by Ambassador Porter. 

The round pillars of the crypt, the black and 
white marble, the heavy plain impressive sarco- 
phagus, the path around the crypt behind the pillars 
of Pyrenees marble, beside heavy robes covered 
with gold hanging from pillar to pillar — make a 
fitting memorial. 

Leaving the grounds through the gated entrance 

340 




STATE CAPITOL AT ANNAPOLIS 



ANNAPOLIS 

you are back instantly within the narrow streets of 
Annapolis. Eeturning to the State House, this 
time to enter, you go into the old Senate Chamber, 
forever to be famous as the room in which General 
Washington resigned his commission as General. 
He had been received with great honors, on his 
arrival in Annapolis where the Continental Con- 
gress was then sitting, and men and women of the 
highest distinction crowded the room and its gallery 
to witness the solemn ceremony. 

It is a beautiful room about square, gloriously 
corniced, with five broad windows slat-shaded and 
with deep paneled window-seats. A room with a 
great throated fireplace, probabl}' a very practical 
atfair on the December day in 1783 in which Wash- 
ington resigned his commission. 

The speaker's seat is in a niche, up three steps, a 
niche set within an elaborately designed frame with 
curving top and pointed pediment. Opposite the 
speaker's seat is a little gallery supported by 
beautiful pillars above which is a long fillet of laurel 
leaves, a design which is also used on the mantel 
and over the speaker's niche. 

When that migratory monarch Louis Philippe met 
Healy, the American artist, he expressed his im- 
mense admiration for George Washington and com- 
missioned him to copy and send to the Tuileries, 
Gilbert Stuart's best portrait of the first President. 
When Daniel Webster was in Europe he met King 
Louis Philippe a number of times and the king told 
him that he had been present on the occasion of the 

341 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

ceremony at Annapolis, when Washington resigned 
his commission to Congress. Louis Philippe both 
spoke and understood English and told of every de- 
tail of Washington 's appearance, so profoundly was 
he still impressed after all those j^ears. He de- 
clared to Webster that Washington was the most ex- 
traordinary man that ever had lived; a great deal 
for a Frenchman to say; and that the speech of 
resignation at Annapolis had: **for sublimity and 
grandeur never been surpassed." 




342 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 



RESENTING it as an inter- 
esting discovery, which it 
certainly was, a 
friend, a Washing- 
tonian of fifty years' 
standing, told me 
that in traveling 
through Ireland he 
chanced upon Ross 
— the home town of 
General Ross — and 
read upon a monu- 
ment in his honor 
that he was the ''Hero of the Battle of Bladens- 
burg. ' ' And it still thrilled him to think of finding 
little Bladensburg so memorialized in a distant land. 
The English really thought much of the battle 
at Bladensburg because it meant the capture of 
America's capital; and Parliament ordered a monu- 
ment for General Ross in Westminster and added to 
his arms the phrase "Ross of Bladensburg" just 
like Kitchener of Khartoum. 

General Ross was an officer of highly respectable 
abilities and was sent to America in command of a 

343 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

force, at the time when what may be called the 
Leipzig-Elba period permitted the mthdrawal of 
troops from the Continent, just as, a little later, 
there was a still more important withdraw^al for 
an attack on New Orleans. 

The American Government, for some unimagin- 
able reason, refused to believe that the English 
would attack the city of Washington. Even after 
it was learned that Eoss was on his way from 
Europe and was so near that he had put in with his 
fleet at the Bermudas, our Government felt sure 
that it was only Baltimore that was to be* attacked. 

Inside of the capes of Chesapeake Bay Ross and 
his ships were joined by Admiral Cockburn, with 
three line-of -battle sliips and several frigates and 
other boats. Cockburn had for some time been 
cruising up and down the Chesapeake and was 
charged with much of devastation and cruelty. Th? 
fleet carrying the army of Ross, added to that of 
Cockburn 's made about forty ships of war ranging 
from large to small. 

Ross determined that the attack on Washingt-on, 
which he was under orders to make, should be made 
by the unexpected route of the Patuxent. They 
landed on August nineteenth, the year being 1814, 
at Benedict, at the mouth of the Patuxent, which 
parallels the Potomac. 

Ross took several days of cautious marching with 
Bladensburg as his important objective, but feeling 
that at any time he might And himself in conflict 
with the Americans, of whom from time to time, he 

344 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

caught glimpses, in companies or cavalry squadrons 
on the hilltops. For a great part of the distance 
along the Patuxent, his troops were convoyed by 
British gunboats, who slowly pursued a number of 
American gunboats that had incautiously gone into 
this estuary and which, before long, it was necessary 
to blow up and burn, on which the crews marched 
off and joined the land forces. 

Bladensburg is, and was, a small old village, only 
a few miles from Washington and on the direct 
road between that city and Baltimore. The road 
led far enough inland to avoid any deep affluents 
of either the Potomac or the Patuxent. The 
British merely found a few little bridges and fords. 

Bladensburg, so important in those days in its 
relation to Washington, looked very much the same 
then that it does now, except that in the course of 
something over a century, a great shabbiness has 
gathered ; and it is no longer a port. It is a village 
of many old-time houses. One, on the north side of 
Sand Street, of brick in Flemish bond was used for 
British wounded and bears the date of 1749. 

Older, is the Stevens house, on a hill to the east- 
ward, also of brick and it was Ross's headquarters. 
There in the village center are little cabins with 
outside chimneys, with ends to the street, and one 
with a great buttonwood tree and an old bench 
under it, has its great-based field-stone chimney 
worn shiny by the backs of the old negroes, who 
lean against it on winter days to warm by the fire 
burning inside. Two little old inns, famous for 

345 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Congressmen's dinners in years gone by, are broken- 
down mementoes of long ago. 

General Boss led his steady Peninsular veterans 
with trained caution, much wondering why he was 
not intercepted. He had four thousand men, but 
he knew that the Americans could be extraordin- 
arily good fighters and that their fighting force 
could greatly outnumber his. He did not know that 
an amazing farce was being acted in front of him. 

The American commander was one Winder, a 
lawyer, given a brigadier-general's commission but 
apparently with no knowledge of war. He galloped 
aimlessly around, much disturbed by the still more 
aimless and wilder galloping of President Madison, 
Secretary of State Monroe, and several other mem- 
bers of the Cabinet. All sorts of contradictory 
orders were given, one of which displaced Winder, 
but another order put him again in command. 

Ross knew that at Bladensburg, if not sooner, 
he would have to try conclusions. His force ap- 
peared, winding along the cedar-bordered road, 
through a wild and wooded country, with higher 
hills rising beyond. He entered the little old village 
and found the Americans drawn up at several dif- 
ferent spots along the highway into Washington 
and especially on the height rising opposite the 
glade which was afterw^ards to be the great dueling 
ground of Washingtonians. 

The battle was hotly contested. Some of the 
Americans were entirely untrained and they were 
left to bear the brunt of the attack. The most cap- 

346 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

able defense was made by Commodore Barney, from 
the Navy Yard, on the height opposite the dueling 
giound, and he made such a defense as to lose heavily 
but at the same time to exact heavy loss from the 
British. Barney was badly wounded and was per- 
sonally seen to by tlie two British commanders, who 
put him i-n charge of an English surgeon. One 
gathers the impression that neither Winder nor the 
high Government officials were in any danger of 
being hurt ; the theory of men in high command staj^- 
ing back and being safe was not popular at that 
time. 

The battle was on August twenty-fourth. It was 
lengthily contested. Outnumbered though he was, 
Ross and his steady veterans drove the Americans 
completely from the field. The President and the 
Cabinet members, when they saw it was a defeat 
vanished into the limbo of approaching night, and 
as a ballad-maker of the day wrote : 

"Then might all people well discern 

The gallant Little Man ; 
His sword did thump behind his back 

So merrily he ran." 

Madison did not even take the trouble of going 
to the White House to get his wife. The American 
Army was understood to have lost less than one 
hundred men. Disorganized though they were and 
practically officerle&s, they retreated to nearby Ten- 
allytown and from there seriously menaced the 
English. 

347 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

The English marched into defenseless Washing- 
ton by the way of Marjdand Avenue. They lost for 
the day, including a considerable number killed and 
wounded by the accidental blowing up of a well filled 
with powder, near the Capitol, sometliing approach- 
ing five hundred men — one in eight — a proportion 
which appalled Ross. 

The British promptly began the burning ordered 
by the home authorities. Cockburn joyously led 
troops into tlie Hall of Representatives to the play- 
ing of the ''British Grenadiers," and there he or- 
dered a fire started. Another fire was started in 
the Senate Chamber. They marched to the Wliite 
Hous^e and found that Mrs. Madison had barely left, 
whereupon they ate a supper which they found pre- 
pared and set fire to that building also. 

Dolly Madison had had a busy day, a day of mes- 
sengers arriving -and departing and of most capable 
packing of state papers and valuables, including 
the imitation Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washing- 
ton, which she entrusted to careful hands. In spite 
of her distress and occupation she wrote at the time 
a letter of description of interminable length, giving 
every detail of alarm and happening with page after 
page, page after page, describing every incident, 
every message, every flutter of her heart, up to the 
moment she herself had to flee. 

It seems impossible — as if she may have rewritten 
it afterwards — but Southern women have a great 
letterwriting habit and ability, and a letter was 
written by Constance Cary Harrison, that seems 

348 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

fully as long as this of Dolly Madison, telling detail 
after detail of the heart-breaking evacuation of 
Richmond, while the Northern soldiers were actually 
entering. 

Oeneral Ross frankly expressed his dislike of 
burning as a campaign method. He said that he 
had been ordered to burn the public buildings of 
Washington because of the wanton burning, the year 
before, by the American General McClure, of the 
public buildings of t'he seat of government of Lower 
Canada — now known as Toronto but then as Newark 
— and of one hundred and fifty homes, causing ter- 
rible suffering to the inhabitants, for it was in 
December of a Canadian winter. It was a war with 
much of disgrace on both sides, and even the name of 
Winfield Scott is connected with the burning of the 
public building and transports at York in Canada. 
From one of the Newark buildings a bunch of fresh 
scalps from the Chicago massacre, governmentally 
paid for by the British, had been brought to Wash- 
ington by the American troops the year before. 

Although private property was untouched in 
Washing-ton except for the burning of the house 
from which a shot was fired just missing Ross but 
killing his horse, as he rode into the city, Washington 
was at its lowest ebb, with destroyed buildings and 
smoking ruins, and the Navy Yard blown up by the 
Americans themselves and the Government dis- 
gracefully scattered. 

As evening came on a heavy storm broke over the 
city, extinguishing much of the burning and on the 

349 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

second night of the British occupation there was 
another storm of even greater severity than that of 
the night before. 

Ross decided to retreat without delay. He knew 
that his army would be lost if the Americans should 
find a capable leader. So, throughout the night, he 
withdrew his men to and beyond Bladensburg, leav- 
ing sentinels marching beside watchfires to deceive 
the Americans. 

With the departure of the British that summer 
night out Maryland Avenue the city of Washington 
mended its ruins and saw half a century of peace, 
prosperity and quiet living till the coming of the 
Civil War, during the four years of which the possi- 
bility of capture was constantly thought of. Lin- 
coln knew how serious would be the etfect on the 
public mind not only of this country but of Eng- 
land, of the Confederates holding Washington for 
even a single hour, so he frequently urged his gen- 
erals to extraordinary caution. 

Many thought that after the first Battle of Bull 
Run there was great danger. Absolute though the 
defeat and rout of the Federals were, with wreckage 
of the army and spectators — for many men and 
women had gone out to see it as a show — there was 
no chance for the Confederates, with what was after 
all only a small force, to make their way in a sudden 
dash, along the road packed and blockaded with the 
broken rout of the Northern army and with dead 
and wounded men and horses, and broken caissons, 

350 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

cannon and vehicles and terrific jamming across 
''the old Long Bridge" itself. 

It would have meant crossing the Potomac to get 
to Washington into which city were every moment 
pouring reinforcements from the North, under the 
stirring summons of "The defence of the Capital" 
sent out before Bull Run was fought. Long Bridge, 
now vanished, was highly important during the 
Civil War. It was a mile long and crossed the 
Potomac from the southwest end of Maryland 
Avenue; it is curious that this avenue should have 
been of such importance to hostile armies at both 
of its ends. 

The justified exultation of the Southern soldiers 
was all that was thought of after Bull Run or Man- 
assas, as the South called it, but I remember a des- 
cription of a frightened, huddled group of Southern 
women, listening to the cannon and rifle firing, wait- 
ing in agony for news of Manassas and after dark- 
ness had come, gathering around the first man from 
the field. Even victory from the first, had its 
terrors. 

Had General Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg 
he would have seized Washington. The one serious 
danger of capture aimed directly at Washington 
was when an army under General Early advanced 
rapidly upon the city. Early was not in the front 
rank of generals but he came close to winning a 
prize of which the greatest general would have been 
proud. Choosing a time in July of 1864, when ho 

351 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

knew that the garrison of the city was depleted to 
assist in some other important movements, he sud- 
denly broke through from the direction of the Shen- 
andoah, planning to use roads which would take him 
to his destination without any trouble of bridging 
or fording around Washington. 

General Lew Wallace was hurried out with all 
available soldiers, to meet and hold General Early's 
advance. Quite outnumbered, it was understood 
that he would be pushed aside, but he was told that 
what was expected of him was to delay Early until 
a large force should have gathered in Washington. 

Early was coming down the National Road by way 
of Frederick— not the Virginia Frederickburg but 
the Maryland Frederick, the town of Barbara 
Frietchie. There it was that Wallace met liim and 
where the resultant battle of the Monocacy was 
fought. 

It is pleasantly worth while to drive to Frederick 
for it is over a charming road out of Washington. 
You soon come to where there are long views over 
fertile hills and dales with the Blue Ridge lining 
the horizon for miles with their fascinating and 
irregular outline. There are large old barns, many 
of squared logs, chinked with stone and clay. Much 
fruit is gloriously in blossom. It is the sunniest 
of shadeless roads but you feel cool from the out- 
look upon the blue mountains. 

You come to old Richville, with a court-house 
square and old houses, with an old inn, pointed 
toward the road. Newmarket is reached, a quaint 

352 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

old town wliicli is just a single street with fields 
immediately behind ; a quaint brick village with each 
house set directly on the brick sidewalk, and with 
the odd old village chopped off as suddenly as it 
began. You have begun to notice that you are in 
a Pennsylvania Dutch country. Here are many im- 
mense red wooden barns with twelve white windows 
painted on their sides, and ten white windows on 
both ends ! These farmers drifted over generations 
ago from Pennsylvania into Maryland and still 
speak German. The people are slow and judicial 
and when I asked one of them whether or not there 
would be an afternoon storm, he pondered lengthily 
and then said: ''Well, perhaps a heavy rain, perhaps 
a light rain, perhaps a shower, perhaps no rain at 
all." 

A series of remarkable curves leading down in 
this old National Road is a triumph of road en- 
gineering of one hundred and ten years ago. This 
is the Old Jug Bridge, stretching across the Mon- 
ocacy at a height of sixty feet above the water and 
made on a slope continuing from the steep curves. 
This road was a favorite enterprise of John Quincy 
Adams, and continues, with no difficult gradients 
across Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio. 

Frederick is now quickly reached: practically a 
long one-street town, with little brick houses, 
shoulder to shoulder, and each one with a few steps 
up from the sidewalk. It represents the heart of 
the Maryland Pennsylvania Dutch district of fine 
farming and quiet living. The houses are small; 

35?, 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

red brick houses with green shutters, gray brick 
houses with green shutters, yellow-gabled houses 
with green shutters ; all neat and almost all old, and 
with glimpses of garden dooryards behind. 

The Barbara Frietchie house has gone but there is 
no difficulty in fancying it still there. And Whit- 
tier's lines admirably describe the place and the 
neighborhood: 

"Up from the meadows rich with corn> 

Clear in the cool September morn, 
The clustered spires of Frederick stand, 
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland." 

Round about them orchards sweep. Apple and 
peach trees fruited deep. It is all there, in fact 
and in poetry. Especially interesting are Whittier's 
words ^'the clustered spires of Frederick," for in 
this extraordinarily long town, the three churches 
are clustered close together and the Maryland hills 
are like walls about that fertile plain. He was pic- 
turing the advance of Stonewall Jackson toward 
Pennsylvania the preceding year. 

For two days the armies of Generals Early and 
Wallace maneuvered and sldrmished, and on July 
ninth came the actual battle on a great meadow 
between Frederick and the river — a grassy meadow 
so dotted now with monuments as to point out the 
heavy losses on both sides. The actual fighting of 
that day was for eight hours. And then Wallace 
had to withdraw — but with his work well done. So 
savagely had he checked Early that the Confederate 

354 



THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 

leader could not move till noon of the next day ; nor, 
hurry as he might, he could not reach the outskirts 
of Washington until the eleventh of July. By that 
time so many thousands of reinforcing soldiers had 
arrived, and so many thousands of department clerks 
were armed and put into the trenches, getting thus 
sixty thousand men, that there was small chance of 
his success. 

In a short story, known as ''Una and King 
David," there is a description of this raiding army 
met by the little Southern girl and the old negro; 
the soldiers with bare and bleeding feet, with faces 
flushed, with eyes bloodshot, with clothing white with 
dust, mth empty haversacks — yet moving with keen 
exhilaration as the futility of it had not permeated 
the ranks. 

Fort Stevens, where Jubal Early actually made 
his hopeless attack on Washington, was one of the 
circle of forts constructed for the defence of the 
city. It is still in existence, and is readily reached 
by driving some miles out Seventh Street and its ex- 
tension, Georgia Avenue. Just off the road, in 
Brightwood, are the still -existent deep trenches of 
Fort Stevens. At Fort Stevens, in his anxiety for 
the capital of his country, President Lincoln hurried 
out to the scene of fighting and stood there actually 
under fire, watching the attempted advance of the 
Confederates and watching the arrival of Federal 
troops and of armed clerks from the Treasury. 
There are now many little negro cabins built about 
Fort Stevens ; and a bronze tablet marked with the 

355 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

date July twelfth, 1864, declares that here President 
Lincoln stood under fire. 

On the other side of "Georgia Avenue is a small 
National Cemetery, believed to be the smallest of 
all the National Cemeteries, established for the 
burial place of the forty-four Ohio and New York 
men who were killed in this defence of the Capital. 

General Grant, who was not free with praise, 
especially for ofifi.cers who were not West Pointers, 
declared unreservedly that Wallace's brave and 
capable stand at the Monocacy saved Washington 
from capture, and one can never forget the tall 
figure of President Lincoln standing actually under 
fire at Fort Stevens in his anxiety for the capital of 
his country. 




356 



CHAPTER XXV 



AN INAUGUBATION 



'T was a c^ld morn- 
ing, but the sun 
was shining and the 
sky was blue. The 
crowd began to 
ri gather early. 

The inauguration ad- 
dress was not expected 
before half past one, 
but when I got there, at 
ften o'clock, thousands 
were already in place. 
I had decided 
'^^ upon a stone seat, 
a long granite bench 
with granite back, circling about a large grassy space 
as a retaining wall a long distance from the front of 
the Capitol, a long distance from the spot on the 
Capitol front where the incoming President was to 
stand. I took a steamer rug with me, so as to be 
able to sit down on the stone bench whenever I 
wanted to : and when I arrived there was space left 
for only one person and I gladly took it. 

357 




THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

Every moment, more and more arrived, filling the 
open space in front of the Capitol, in front of the 
long granite bench and far behind it. By eleven 
o'clock the space was crowded, by eleven thirty it 
was jammed, by twelve it was only with the greatest 
difficulty that any one could twist and squirm 
through the jam, and, so it was estimated by those 
looking down on the crowd, at least a hundred thou- 
sand w^ere there. 

On previous occasions only a few people had ever 
expected to hear an inaugural address. It would be 
sufficient if now and then a word could be caught, 
and if the ceremony itself could be witnessed, but 
this time was to be different. For the speech of 
Harding was to be heard for what was really an 
immense distance. 

Many a night, leaving the Library of Congress at 
closing time and emerging upon the great space then 
almost always lonely and practically deserted, I had 
heard mysterious and almost ghostly sounds sweep- 
ing over the empty space. Here and there I would 
come upon some one listening and noting: for it 
was the testing of a new apparatus, a sound con- 
veyor, a transmitter. It was to be used to carry the 
words of the speaker to a distance hitherto un- 
dreamt of. It was placed upon a small porch, of 
classic design, directly above where the incoming 
President was to stand, at the foot of the platform 
on the -central steps of the Capitol. The porch was 
strangely like the one designed by Latrobe a century 
before for that very spot. 

358 



AN INAUGURATION 

As the great throng waited for the ceremonies to 
begin it was curious to notice that the flag that 
floated above where the new President was to stand 
was at half mast. The explanation was that a 
leading Congressman had just died: but none the 
less it seemed odd to leave the flag in that way: 
and shortly before the time when the ceremonies 
were to begin some ofificial noticed it and it was 
raised to full height. 

While the immense throng waited, the transmitter 
was not inactive. A talking machine had been 
placed under the porch, and tune after tune was 
turned on and speech after speech. Lincoln's 
Gettysburg Address was solemnly given, to a highly 
astonished audience, and then, with impartiality, 
came "Dixie!" And there followed an almost un- 
ceasing line of talk and music, with now and then a 
rest to allow the scarlet-coated Marine Band to 
play. But the bandsmen were not seated beneath 
the canopy and so had none of the benefit of the 
transmitter, and although, from where I sat, I could 
see the leader vigorously leading and could see that 
the instruments were at the players ' mouths, it was 
only now and then that even a single note was heard, 
at the distance at which I sat and over the heads of 
a restless chirring mass. Then again the trans- 
mitter and the talking machine, with perhaps gay 
dance music or a solemn Ave Maria. There was no 
censor for the apparatus and, fortunately, none was 
needed, although there easily might have been need : 
and even as it was the effect was not at all in keep- 

359 



THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 

ing with the solemnity of the occasion that had 
called the people together. 

A thin page came and hung a row of funeral-like 
wreaths along the front of the speakers' stand 
causing mild excitement among spectators. A fat 
darky came with a broom and swept the spot where 
President Harding was to be and there was another 
slight wave of mild excitement. Here and there, in 
the crowd, colored toy balloons were sent up, and 
there were again slight waves of mild excitement. 

A greater wave of interest swept the crowd, and 
a line of motor-cars came slowly on, crowded with 
wounded soldiers. The cars stopped in front of the 
central portico, and the soldiers were assisted to 
seats that had been reserved. There were other 
mild waves of interest as cars drove up with various 
important occupants, whose identity only a few 
could even guess. But when a big motor-car came 
up, in which were seated, outgoing President Wilson 
and incoming President Harding, accompanied by 
Senator Knox and Representative ''Joe" Cannon, 
a stronger but silent interest was manifested. Even 
from my distant place, the pair of principals could 
for a moment be well seen, for I had a field glass. 
Escorted by a squadron of cavalry, with fluttering 
guidon of red and white, and followed by other cars, 
the Presidential car stopped at the Senate end of 
the great building, and Wilson was shielded from 
sight by assistants, and the crowd knew that the first 
important act, the swearing in of the Vice-President, 
in the Senate chamber, was about to take place. 

360 



AN INAUGURATION 

It was evident, in the swift look, that President 
Wilson was feeble and broken. The man who had 
so recently been practically all powerful, in the 
world, was almost unable to walk, and quite unable 
to leave the car without some swift assistance from 
official ushers and helpers immediately beside him. 

Harding, fresh, vigorous, almost youthful, was a 
vivid contrast in appearance and bearing, but there 
was apparent, in his manner, only a gentleness and 
consideration for the man whose place he was about 
to take. 

There followed another wait, and all watched to 
see when the movement from the Senate chamber to 
the central front should begin, for the windows of 
the connecting passage-way permitted a view of the 
connecting corridor. 

But even more closely, for a time, I watched a 
door in the Senate wing, a service door, a little 
heeded and insignificant door. It opened, and a 
car moved quietly up, for all had been arranged to 
the fraction of a moment. President Wilson was 
not going to wait until the open public ceremonies. 
He was too feeble to walk down those outside steps 
to the spot where he would have had to stand. So 
he was to leave as soon as he should sign a number 
of just-passed bills that were waiting for him. But 
only a very few knew, that he was to leave by that 
insignificant service door, chosen because it was un- 
noticeable and because it was on the very same 
level, as his waiting car. An open space was kept 
there, free from other cars so that he could get 

361 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

away without being held in a blockade even for a 
few minutes. 

At half past twelve the door gently opened, and 
in the opening he appeared. He seemed, in the 
flash of sight, more feeble, more tottering than be- 
fore, but courteous and brave. It was clear that 
he had been making and was still making a tre- 
mendous effort. 

Then followed an incident, immensely dramatic 
and pitiful. The President of the United States 
— for he was still the President and would be for 
another hour — the President of the United States, 
recently the dominator of the world, with the almost 
certainty of being formal ruler under the league had 
not his terrible illness struck him, was not able even 
to attempt to enter his car. A trained usher of the 
White House, a broad-shouldered powerful man, 
swiftly and with precision of movement backed up 
into the car, took hold firmly of the President's 
shoulders, and practically pulled him up into the 
seat. It was all over in a moment. Few saw it. 
It was a sight to make one gasp. To what a feeble 
pass had almost infinite greatness come ! 

It was only a moment. Mrs. Wilson got in be- 
side him. The car instantly moved away. She 
could not accompany him in the formal journey 
from the White House, but now was ready to be his 
companion, ready to resume her place as the wife of 
Woodrow Wilson. 

The car moved off. It went about three lengths 
before it was noticed, and then, before the few who 

362 



AN INAUGURATION 

realized could raise the beginnings of a feeble cheer, 
it had vanished, and the outgoing President had 
started on his way to his new home. 

He did not, like almost all of our Presidents, have 
a home, a dwelling place, a home locality, to return 
to. Washington had his Mount Vernon. Jefferson 
had his Monticello. Dolly Madison from Montpelier 
used to send pickles and home-dried cherries to her 
successor in the White House, Mrs. Monroe, the 
British officer's daughter; and so on up to modem 
times, through the Hermitage, Kinderhook, Canton 
and Oyster Bay. All, or practically all, had a home. 
But Wilson was essentially a homeless man ; he had 
to make a new home, which made the change in his 
fortunes even more dramatic. He had recently 
purchased a house on S Street, and to that house he 
went to take up his home. 

Under one's eyes was the passing of a ruler, a 
man born to command and with every faculty 
trained to that end. And, realizing this, the 
imagination must needs accompany him. Thoughts 
came of the mighty Wolsey, and of the words of 
Shakespeare: **An old man, broken with the cares 
of state." Not that Wolsey was old in years, 
not that Wilson was old in years ; they were \\dthin 
a year or two of the same age, close to sixty, when 
power slipped away from them. 

Wilson would go to his unfamiliar home; he 
would sit restlessly for a while; and then would 
come the realization that all was over. Many a 
President before him had given place to a successor, 

363 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 

but this was the first of our rulers who could have 
looked at world possibilities following rulership 
here. 

A few first stragglers began to move through the 
connecting passageway, and soon the numbers in- 
creased, and it was but a little while before men be- 
gan to dribble down into their places on the central 
stand. 

Soon Warren Harding emerged and walked down 
to the front of the platform. Soon Mrs. Harding, 
quietly and with self-possession, took her place at a 
little distance from her husband. This and that 
distinguished indi^ddual were picked out: a few 
Senators of note, the retiring and the incoming 
Vice-Presidents, the Chief Justice. There were 
other justices, there were ambassadors and there 
were State governors, there were army and navy 
men of high rank, there were a few personal friends, 
there were a few ladies besides Mrs. Harding. For 
a few moments there was a cloud of tobacco smoke : 
some could not, even at such a place and such a mo- 
ment, do without smoking. It was a curious thing 
to see. A solemn silence fell upon the hundred 
thousand spectators. The black-gowned Chief Jus- 
tice and the man who in a moment would be Pres- 
ident faced each other, and the silence grew more 
tense. Then came the words, as fonnally demanded 
by the Constitution; 

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the 
ofSce of President of the United States, and will to the 

3U 



AN INAUGURATION 

best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Con- 
stitution of the United States." 

Harding kissed a Bible as he took the oath, a 
Bible than which none could be more fitting, for it 
was the very one used by George Washington on 
his first inauguration, far back at the beginning of 
the Constitution. What thoughts come of that far- 
away day in New York City, when Washington sol- 
emnly touched his lips to this very book. And when 
President Harding, now facing forward, and speak- 
ing with a calm impressiveness, delivered an ad- 
dress all American, delivered it soberly, calmly, 
with manner all dispassionate, and with every word, 
every syllable heard plainly to an immense dis- 
tance, it was a wonderfully impressive scene. And 
all was so simple ! Just a handful of soldiers in 
the throng, indicative of the millions so recently un- 
der arms in actual war. A simple grouping, also, 
of soldiers and sailors around a stand of colors. 
Above the heads of the speakers and the distin- 
guished group about them, an American flag, hori- 
zontally spread. Pigeons circled disturbed in their 
Capitoline home. 

One could not but think of Washington, and his 
"I conjure you, my fellow citizens,*' when this latest 
of our long line of Presidents declared with solemn 
precision of utterance : 

"The recorded progress of our Republic, materially and 
spiritually, in itself proves the wisdom of the inherited 
policy of non-involvement in Old World aflEairs. — We 

365 



THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
seek no part in directing the destinies of the Old World." 

Yet in how short a time were we to be making in- 
volving treaties with Europe and Asia! 

From the start to the conclusion it was a speech 
of Americanism, and the immense throng felt it as 
such, and were powerfully moved. It was delivered 
with dignity and earnestness throughout, down to 
the solemn ending. 

Always the incoming President feels the sense of 
responsibility and the earnest desire, no matter how 
fleeting, to do something for his country; and al- 
ways the multitude assembled are thrilled by the pro- 
mise of the future. 

It was all over. This quiet throng, this quiet 
ceremonial, this quietly delivered speech of Ameri- 
canism without ostentation, without visible mani- 
festation of power, without display. But with all 
the impressiveness that comes from the presence of 
a hundred thousand, listening quietly, with gravity, 
to their new head. 

Quietly the crowd dispersed. Nowhere was there 
undue haste, nowhere even the slightest disorder, 
although there were no soldiers to enforce order, 
and but the thinnest scattering of police. In all, it 
was an example of Americanism: the medleyed mu- 
sic, the darky and his broom, the absence of all show 
of power. 

And in the minds of the dispersing hundred thou- 
sand there silently echoed words and phrases from 

366 



AN INAUGURATION 

the address of the leader whose voice had but just 
ceased: 

"We have seen a world passing and spend its fury, but 
we contemplate our Republic unshaken and hold our 
civilization secure." 




THE END 



367 



INDEX 



— A.— 

Adams, Abigail, 12, 32, G9, 177, 
178 

Adams, Henry, 123. 124, 159, 182 

Adams, John, 32; dying, 33; an- 
gry about Washiiijiton, 50, 79 

Adams, John Quincy, 12; mirror 
28, 32, 33, G8, 72. 98; almost 
drowned. 2S3. 3r,:? 

Agricultural Department, 172 

Albert, King, 205 

Alcott. Louisa M., 22S 

Alexandria, 5, 296,-302, 318 

Allen, Ethan, statue of. 74 

Amphitheatre, Memorial, 277 

Anacostia, 6, 152. 155. 333 

Anderson, Larz, 138, 229 

Anglers' Association, 273 

Annapolis, 332-342 

Annexes: White House. 221; 
Treasury, 221; Senate and 
House, *221 

Appian Way, 53-62 

Appomattox, 174 

Architects: Bacon, 185; Bulfindi, 
58, 65; Burnham, 171, 213; 
Carrere and Hastings. 277; 
Gilbert, 221; Hallate, 64, 
37, 39, 64; The Institute of, 
135; Jefferson, 65, 66; Latrolie, 
39, 64; McKim.. 171. Thornton, 
64, 65, 303; White, 221, 279 

Arlington, 275, 277 

Art Commission. 160 

Arts Club, 161-162 

Assassinations, Presidential, 29, 
33 

Avenue of Presidents, 211, 215, 
250 

— B.— 



Bacon, Henry, 185, 190 



Bailey, Temple, 232 

Balcing bread in wartime, 75 

Bancroft, 126 

Bancroft Hall, 339-340 

Barbecue at Capitol, 63 

Barlow, Joel, 139, 140, 165, 229, 

269 
Barney, Commodore, 347 
Barron, Commodore, 53, 132 
Battenburg, 23 
Battles: Bladensburg, 343-347; 

Fredericksburg. 307-312; Lake 

Erie, 286; the Monocacy, 352, 

354 
Beanes. Dr. William, 287, 334 
Bell, Alexander Graham, 290 
Belmont. Perry, 143 
Benton, Senator, 84, 87 
Bishop, Braddock'a servant, 18, 

323 
Bladensburg. 343-347 
Blaine. James G.. 143 
Bonaparte, Secretary, 23 
Booth, 149, 152 
Borglum, 137 
Braddock, 18, 293. 296, 297, 298, 

299, 323 
Bridges: Cabin John, 272. 273; 

Connecticut Avenue, 187. 292; 

I Street. 188; Key Memorial, 

188, 287; "Long," 188, 351; 

Old Jug. 353 
British Embassy, 129, 144 
Bryce. James, 161 
Bu'clinnan, James, 27, 160, 227, 

228 
Buifinch. 5ft. 65. 127 
Bureau of Engraving. 223 
Burnham. Daniel. 213 
Burnett. Frances Hodgson, 141, 

204, 208. 231 
Burning of Washington, 348, 350 
Burr. Aaron, 278 
Butler, Benjamin, 79 



369 



INDEX 



— c— 

Cabin John Bridge, 272, 273 
Calhoun, 90 
Capitol, 63-76 
Capitol, Old, 90 
Carlyle, 283 
Carlyle house, 298 
Carrere and Hastings, 277 
Carroll, Charles, 93, 337 
Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, 

147, 249, 292-293 
Center Market, 59, 60, 218 
Chase, Salmon P., 289 
Cherries, Japanese, 280, 281 
Chevy Chase, 294, 295 
Chicago scalps, 349 
Christ church, 299 
Churches: Christ, 299; Covenant, 
115; Dutch Reformed, 14S; 
Foundry, 287; old Maryland, 
335 ; Metropolitan Memorial, 
148 ■' New York Avenue Presby- 
terian 147; Pohick, 303-305; 
St. Matthew's, U5, 117, 147; 
St. John's, 122, 126, 127, 128, 
12') 147; St. Paul's, 181 
Clay, Henry, 25, 87, 88, 133, 273 
Cleveland, Grover, 28, 29, 99 
Cleveland, Mrs., 179 
Closing hours, 104 
Coekburn, Admiral, 344 
Colonial Dames, 175 
'^Columbiad," 229 ,^„ ,,, 

Congressional Cemetery, I5.i-1D^ 
Connecticut Avenue, 258, 264, 

267 292 
Constitution, The. 219 
Continental Memorial Hall, 254 
Corcoran, W. W., 10, 125, 144, 

162, 164, 289 
Corcoran Gallery, 162-165, 253 
Cornerstone of Capitol, 64 
Cosmos Club, 131, 237 
Craik, Doctor, 300, 329 
Crypt of Capitol, 75, 76 
Curzon, Lady, 143 
Custis, Elinor, 303, 325 
Custia, George Washington 
Parke, 275 



Custis family, builders, 291, 292, 

303 
Custis, Martha, 18, 19 

— D.— 

Daughters of the American Revo- 
lution, 175, 254 

Davis, Jefferson, 67, 142. 273 

Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, 105 

Decatur, Stephen, 53, 123, 132, 
133, 246 

Dewey, Admiral, 115, 141 

Dickens, 233, 305 

Diplomats, 111 

District of Columbia, 4 

Dogs, 267 

"Dooley, Mr.," 234 

Douglas, Stephen A., 153 

Duels: at Bladensburg, 347; Clay 
and Marshall, 88; Clay and 
Randolph, 87, 273; Decatur 
and Barron, 53, 132 

Dumfries, 306 ,„, ,o^ 

Dupont Circle, 142, 143, 184, 185 

Dupont, Fort, 333 

Dwight, Timothy, 229 

— E.— 

Early, General, 351, 352 

East Room, 44 

Easter egg-rolling, 34-36 

Ecclesiastics: in Congress, 98; 
Hawley. 127; Pise, 236; Pyne, 
128; Witherspoon, 98, 115 

Elms. 109 

Embassies: British, 129, 144; 
Cuban. 250; French, 249; Po- 
lish, 249 

Entertaining, 261 

Evarts, 22, 88 

Everett, Edward, 142 

Executive Mansion,, 18 

— F.— 

F Street, 114, 217, 263, 264 

Fairfax, 326 

Fairfax, Lord, 15, 16, 300 



370 



INDEX 



Falmouth, 307 

Federal City, 11, 12 

Filliiiore. Millard. 21 

Fillmore, Mrs., 17!) 

Fisher, Admiral, 67 

Florida Avenue, 107, 111 

Flower vending, 263 

Forts: Dupont, 333; Myer, 294; 

Stevens, 355, 356 
Foundry Church, 287 
Foxhall, 286, 287 
Franklin, Benjamin, 50, 60, 69, 

89, 297 
Freer Gallery, 165, 186 
Frederick. 352, 354 
Fredericksburg, 302, 305, 307- 

312 
Fremont, 84 
French, Daniel Chester, 171, 185, 

190 
Frietchie, Barbara, 354 
Friday. 33 
Furniture, Old, 175, 176, 313-331 

— G.— 

Gail Hamilton, 230 

Gardens, 108, 120. 129, 132, 135 
245, 246, 247; of Mount Ver- 
non, 321; old box, 338; An- 
napolis, 338 

Garfield. James A., 02 

George the Great. 1 

Georgetown, 5, 188, 286-292 

Georgetown College, 285 

Ghosts, 130, 268-270 

Gilbert, Cass, 221 

Government, seats of, 4 

Grant, Ulysses S., 27, 103, 124, 
174, 356 

Grant Memorial, 171 

Grant Mrs., 179 

Groat Falls, 271, 274 

Greenough, 243, 244 

— H.— 



Hamilton, Gail, 230 

Hanna. Mark, 24, 129, 206 

Harding, Chester, 77 

Harding, Warren G.. 22, 258; 

Inauguration of, 357-367 
Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 103, 231, 

348 
Harrison, William Henry, 29 
Harte. Bret. 13 
Hawlov. 127 
Hawthorne, 32, 75, 159, 227, 228, 

235, 2!»!» 
Hay, John, 122, 123, 229, 234 
Hayes, l^itlierford B., 22 
Hayes, Mrs. ,179 
Hayne, 80, 81 
Healy, 49 

Hoban. James, 37, 39, 64 
Holman, 100 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 235, 252 
Home, .Sweet Home, 288 
Hoover. Herbert, 139 
Hor^e-slioe Drives, 112 
Houdon. 325. 328 
House of Keprosentatives, 71, 92, 

94 
Houses, old, 130, 132, 133, 134, 

135. 156, 157, 206, 231, 246, 

269, 280. 289, 292, 298, 301, 

302, 303,, 306, 333, 334, 335, 

345 
Houston. Sam, 87, 164 
Howe, Julia Ward, 228 
Howolls, W illiam Dean, 228, 229 
Hughes, Charles J., 144 



Inaugural ball, CJrant's, 27 

Inaugurations: .John Adams', 
79; Harding's, 357-367; Jef- 
fer.son's. 70; Polk's, 61; Taft's, 
61 ; Wilson's. (11 

Indians, 1 16 

Ingalls, Senator, 89 

Irving, Washington, 21, 232-233 



H Street, 121, 126. 195 — J.— 

Hallate, Stephen. 64 

Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 195 Jackson, Andrew, 17, 18, 20, 21, 

371 



INDEX 



48, 56, 103, 119. 133, 220 
Japanese cherries, 280-281 
Jav, John, 79 
Jefferson, Thomas. 7, 33, 54, 55, 

65. 66. 69, 79, 114, 220, 319 
Johnson, Andrew, 58 
Jones, John Paul. 312. 340 
Judiciary Square, 223 
Jug Bridge, Old, 353 

— K.— 

Kalorama 139-140, 269 

Kansas, 89, 90 

Keats, 229 

Kenmore, 309, 310 

Kev, 132 

Key Bridge, 287 

Key. Francis Scott. 287, 288 

King, Vice-President, 83 

Kosciuszko, 121 

— L.— 

Lafayette, 121, 291, 297, 301, 310, 

324 
Lafayette Square, 119-136, 269 
Landais, Pierre, 11 
I^ne. Harriet. 160, 179, 228 
Latrobe, 10. 39. 64, 78, 126, 358 
Law, Thomas. 15". 156 
Lee, Light-horse Harrv, 327 
Lee, Robert E, 74. 124, 146, 174, 

276, 291, 300, 309, 326 
Leinster, seat of Duke of, 38 
Leiter, L. Z., 142 
L'Enfant, Major, 7, 8, 9, 10, 277, 

289 
Leopold, King, 205 
Lewis, Mrs. Fielding, 309, blO, 

311 
Lewis. Sinclair, 232 
Library of Congress, 165, 238-240 
Library. Public, 238 
Lights^ 252 

Lincoln, Abraham, 33,_ 46^ 62, 
'107, 148-153. 169, 190, 224, 235, 

236 265, 355 
Lincoln Memorial, 170 
Lincoln, Mrs., 179 



Lodge, Henry Cabot, 140 
Logan, Mrs., 30 
Long Bridge, 188, 351 
Louis Philippe, 341 
Louis XVI., 326 
Louise Home, 144, 145 
Lyndhurst, Lord, 81, 82 

— M.— 

Mace, the 94 

Macnionnies. 158 

Madison. Dollv, 24, 25, 131. 133, 

178, 194. 348. 349 
Madison, James, 24, 25, 131, 136, 

347 
Madison Place. 129, 133, 206 
Mall, the, 165. 167, 172 
Market, horse, 116 
Marshall, Chief-Justice, 77, 79 

319, 329 
Marshall, Vice-President, 86 
Martineau, Harriet 48 
Marye's Heights, 309 
Maryland Avenue, 350, 351 
Masons of Alexandria, 300, 301 
McClellan, 102, 159 
McKinley, Mrs., 179 
McKinley, William, 24 
Memorial Amphitheatre. 277 
Memorial Continental Hall, 254 
Memorials: Mrs. Henry Adams, 

182, 183; to Captain Butt, 

188: bridge, 186; Dupont, 184; 

Kev Bridge, 188; Lincoln, 170, 

189-192, 277 
Memorial Red Cross, 253 
Memorial trees. 184. 186 
Meredith, Owen, 230 
Monocacy, battle of, 352, 354, 

356 
Monroe, James, 33 
Monroe, Mrs., 178 
Monuments: Mrs. Henry Adams, 

159; Buchanan. 160; Mercer, 

310; Washington, 168-170; 

Washington's mother. 310 
Moore. Thomas, 3, 4, 58, 244 
Alorris, Robert, 154, 155, 280 



372 



INDEX 



Mount Pleasant, 107, 108, 248, 

24!) 
Mount Vernon, 27, 313-331 
Municipal Building, 222 

Napoleon, .3 

National Chamber of Commerce, 

131 
National Geographic Society, 140, 

249 
National Museum, 172-180, 332 
National Koad. 352, 3r)3 
Naval Academy, 330-340 
Naval Observatory, 2!)3 
Navv Yard, 349 
Negroes, 105, 106, 152 
New Hampshire Avenue, 108, 

208, 24G 



"Places." 112 

Pohick Church, 303-305 

Police, 115 

Polk, CI 

Poorc. Ben Perley, 230 

Porter, Ambassailor, 340 

Portraits: 49, Jay. 79; Marshall, 

79; Craik, 300*; Lord Fairfax, 

300; Healy. 341 
Post-oliice, 215 
Post-office department, 222 
Potomac, 271, 284. 317, 318, 321 
Potomac Park, 279, 280 
Prince of \\ales, 27 
Princeton, gunboat, 278 
Pulaski, 60 

— Q — 

Quantico. 305 

Quartermaster's Stores, 259, 267 

Quoits, 77 



Oak Hill Cemetery, 288 

Occoquon, 30G 

Octagon, the, 134-136. 207 

Old Capitol, 90. 151. 152 

Old Houses, 130. 133, 134, 135, 
150, 157, 206, 231, 240, 280, 
289. 292, 298, 301, 302, 303, 
306, 333, 334, 335, 345 

— P.— 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 143, 229, 
236 

Pan-American Union, 254-257 

Patent Office. 217 

Patuxcnt. 344 

Pauncefote. Lord. 129 

Payne, John Howard, 288, 289 

Pecularities of Presidents. 34 

Pp""=vlvania Avenue, 53-62, 222, 

237! 261, 264, 285 
Ptnn>]yvania Dutch, 353 
Pension Building, 223-224 
Pershing. 84, 85 
Peter the Great, 2 
Pierce, Franklin, 21, 98 
Pierce. Mrs., 179 
Pise, Father, 236 

37 



— R.— 

Raleigh Hotel, 58 
Randolph, John, 87, 273 
Rappahannock. 307, 30S, 310, 312 
Red Cross, American, 253 
Reed, Thomas B., 97 
Representatives. 71-101 
Restaurants, 202, 263 
Rochambeau, 120 
Rock Creek. 181, 187, 247 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 19, 23, 25, 

28, 46, 48, 51, 85, 95, 129, 148, 

234., 242, 273 
Roosevelt. ^Irs.. 179 
Root, Klihu, 140-147 
Ro.'^s, General. 343, 350 
Rotunda, the, 68-71 

— S.— 

S street, 139, 215, 363 

Saint Gaudens, 158, 160, 161, 

171, 182 
Sampson, Admiral. 67 
Satterlee, Bishop, 293 
Schools, 111 
Scott, General, 59, 128, 137, 195 



INDEX 



Scott, Sir Walter. 237 

Scottish Rite Temple, 215 

vSellers, Colonel, 227 

Seniple, Mrs. Letitia Tyler, 145 

"Seventh of March" Speech, 90, 91 

Seward, 62, 207 

Shenandoah, 15 

Sliepherd, Colonel,, 112 

Sheridan, General, 137, 224 

Sherman, General, 17, 20, 84, 
102, 145, 196 

Slierman, John, 20, 141 

Sickles, General, 132 

Sixteenth Street, 211, 249, 250 

Smithsonian Institute, 166, foun- 
der, 240-243 

Society, 199, 200, 250, 251, 259, 
260, 261 

Soldiers' Home, 181 

Southworth, Mrs. E. D. N., 231 

Stanton, Edwin M., 289 

Star Spangled Banner, the, 287 

Sprague, Kate Chase. 125, 126 

State Houses, old: 66, Annapolis, 
335, 336, 341 

State War and Navy Department, 
55. 219 

Statuary Hall, 71 

Statues: Allen. 74; Emancipa- 
tion, 152; Franklin, 60; Free- 
dom, 67; Grant. 103; Jackson, 
17, 103, 119: Koscius/.ko. 121; 
Lafayette, 121; Lee, 74; Lin- 
coln," 190; McCIellan. 102, 159; 
Pulaski, 60; Rochamheau, 120; 
Scott, 137, 161; Sheridan, 137, 
138; Sherman. 17. 102; Steu- 
ben, 121; Suffragists, 74; 
Washington. 13, 74, 243. 244, 
325; Webster, 73; Wither- 
spoon , 115 

Steuben, Baron von, 121 

Suffragists, statue of, 74, 

Sumner, Charles, 119 

Supreme Court, 78 

Surratt, Mrs. 151 

— T.— 

Taft, William Howard, 61, 141. 
258, 259, 301 



Taft, Mrs., 180, 280 
Taney, Chief Justice, 106-107 
Tayloe, 56, 57, 194, 206 
Taylor, Zackary, 29, 30, 31, 32, 

169, 170 
Thackeray, 21, 119, 232. 233, 251 
Thomas. General, 161, 196 
Thornton, Doctor, 64, 303 
Titles, 199-200 
Tobacco in the Senate. 86 
Treasury Annex, 221 
Treasury Buildings, 55, 56, 130, 

220 
Trees of Mount Vernon. 319, 320 
Trumbull, John, 68. 70 
Tudor Place. 290-292 
Twain, Mark. 227 
Tyler, John, 29. 31 
Tyler, Mrs., 179 

— U.— 

"Uncle Tom's Cabin." 230 
Union Station, 60. 213 
Upper Marlborough. 287, 334 

— v.— 

Van B-.iren, Martin, 21, 31, 88, 

110, 133, 179 
Vernon, Admiral, 316 
Volta Place. 290 
Voting, 210 

— W.— 

Wade, Benjamin, 90 
Wallace, General Lew, 352, 356 
War College. 155. 278. 279 
War Risk Building. 130. 223 
Washington. George, 1-16. 33. 49, 

63. 6S. 175, 176, 244, 257. 274, 

296, 298, 304, 305, 307. 308, 

311. 332 
Washington, Lawrence. 316 
Washington, Mary, 309-310, 311, 

323 
Washington Memorial, 170 
Washington Monument, 168, 169 
Watterson, Henry, 72 



174 



INDEX 



Webster, Daniel. 59, 62, 73. 80, 
81, 82, 88. 90, 124, 125. 272. 341 

Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 125 

Weema. Parson, 307 

Wheat Row, 157 

Whistler, 187 

White House, the. 17. 18, 19. 23, 
24, 34-36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44, 46, 
47. 48, 135, 148, costumes, 177- 
180 

White. Stanford. 221. 279 

Wbitinan, Walt, 226-227 

Whittier, 227 



Willard. 56 

Willard Hotel. 57, 114 

Willis, N. P., 230 

Wilson, Vice-President, 83 

Wilson, Mrs.. 179. 180, 2(i4. 302 

Wilson, Woodrow, 24, 28, 43. 45, 

51. 52, 61. 138, 139. 214, 259, 

278, 300, 3G1, 302 
Winder, General, 346 
Winstanlev 50, 348 
Winthrop." Robert (\, 169 
Witherspoon, 98, 115 
Woodlawn, 303 



375 



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